New ACTA Leak Outs Who Have Been Blocking Transparency
Posted on: February 28, 2010The transparency issue is the number 1 issue that has plagued the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement on the public front. One question amongst observers is who is blocking transparency still? Apparently, this latest leak answers that question.
The leak also points out who have been supporting transparency during the negotiations which is just as noteworthy. One can note that while reading through who have been for and against transparency, it also confirms how divided negotiations really are considering negotiators haven't really been able to settle a basic procedural aspect of the secret document and perhaps even a shows a sign why negotiations are taking so long. It does echo our previous suspicion that ACTA negotiations wasn't exactly a bed of roses internally.
Reported by Michael Geist, the leak (German, English translation) shows that the United States, no big surprise, have been one of the players in blocking transparency, but there were other countries as well:
Belgium, Portugal, Denmark and Germany are still not convinced that complete transparency has to be achieved.
Michael Geist's comment:
While Japan is apparently supportive, both South Korea and Singapore oppose ACTA transparency. Moreover, the U.S. has remained silent on the issue, as it remains unconvinced of the need for full disclosure. In doing so, it would appear that the U.S. is perhaps the biggest problem since a clear position of support might be enough to persuade the remaining outliers.
The document also pointed out who was in full support of transparency:
The United Kingdom, supported by Finland, France, The Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Hungary, Denmark, Italy, Ireland, Poland Belgium and Portugal, pressed the EC again to have a pro-active stance on transparency and to try to convince the other parties of the necessity of being transparent.
This might explain why there have been so many mixed signals coming out of the European commission since there are members of the European Union trying to block transparency while others are trying to disclose the documents.
The reason given for transparency is apparently to address “unwarranted criticism” of a three strikes law or border searches which, at the very least, confirms our comments that one could easily be pro-copyright and still support transparency in the negotiations.
One things for sure, it actually does show the frustrating position the UK is in currently. If you want to show that there's no such thing as a three strikes law in ACTA, but you aren't legally able to prove it to the public, what do you do? There's a term for that, “screwed”.
Still, one can't help but think back to one negotiators comment on how people would walk if the treaty was made public. If transparency is such an issue for some in negotiations, why can't a similar threat be made. Say that if you other negotiators aren't going to disclose the documents, then you would walk from the table, start your own ACTA and have it completely transparent for a change. Since there are so many more players supporting transparency, that isn't really all that far fetched of an idea. Clearly negotiations aren't exactly going the speed of light here and there are plenty of lessons learned like make a new ACTA strictly about counterfeiting and forget about copyright infringement. Then you'd have public support on your side and there'd be less complicated discussions to go over. Wouldn't the UK and their long list of supporters be better off that way at this point?
Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.
HDChina Open For Signup – Great HD Tracker
Posted on: February 28, 2010We’ve on numerous occasions discussed HD torrent trackers that have their roots in China. Out of all the Chinese trackers featured on this blog, HDChina is probably the largest both it terms of content as well as user base. It’s a specialized High Definition torrent site that tracks a lot of English movies and TV series. Releases indexed here being untouched Blu Ray or x264 encoded rips, video quality of torrents tracked by HDChina are usually very good. HD is a private community and is usually...
Torrents.ru Fights Back After Domain Seizure
Posted on: February 28, 2010
On February 18, 2010, RU-Center, Russia’s largest domain name registrar and web-hosting provider, pulled the plug on the Torrents.ru domain name, suspending it with immediate effect and leaving 4 million users and 1 million torrents homeless.
A representative from RU-Center confirmed that the domain was blocked on the orders of the Investigative Division of the regional prosecutor’s office in Chertanovskaya, Moscow, but at that time could not disclose the reasons.
Subsequently it was revealed that the seizing of the domain was due to violation of Article 146 of the Criminal Code – “Illegal use of objects of copyright or related rights, as well as acquisition, storage, transportation of counterfeit copies of works or phonograms for sale, committed on a large scale”.
Although Torrents.ru operated a ‘notice and take down' procedure whereby copyright owners can have torrents removed “no questions asked”, the complaint specifically mentioned software developed by 1C and AutoDesk. Both companies have since denied initiating proceedings against the site but rumors persist that they were somehow involved.
After so easily losing their domain in the .RU zone, the operators of Torrents.ru weren't about to take any chances by registering a new domain with the same authority. Within hours the site had relocated to a new domain at rutracker.org, apparently registered from the Bahamas.
Understandably the Torrents.ru domain seizure has caused quite a stir in Russia. Even though the law allows a month for a dispute to be rectified, RU-Center acted immediately and without being ordered to do so by a court, prompting theories of back-room deals under the influence of US interests. The operators of rutracker.org say that they are prepared to go to court over the case and will complain to ICANN.
“It was absolutely illegal,” said the owner of Torrents.ru in a recent interview. “We will appeal against it, but in this case it’s not the most important thing. The precedent is created. If you are an owner of domain name in .ru zone, you should know that it can be suspended at any moment by the order of an investigator.”
Following the domain closure a petition was set up addressed to President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, asking them to investigate the authorities who are said to have overstepped the limits of their powers. It currently has more than 15,300 signatures.
Other less conventional responses to the seizure have also been underway, with the Russian Pirate Party reporting that the websites of 1C and online cinema EKinoT have been subjected to DDoS attacks. In January, EKinoT said it would work with the Ministry of Culture to ‘blacklist' sites which compete illegally with its business – Torrents.ru was one of the sites mentioned along with sharereactor.ru, intv.ru, binmovie.ru and epidem.ru.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/_SUa6xBOnzo/ Post LinkSearch through Multiple File Sharing Sites with Torfinder
Posted on: February 28, 2010
A new meta-search engine has emerged on the p2p file sharing scene. Called Torfinder.com, the site scans through 14 different sites to help you find what you’re looking for and in doing so “will use its smart filter to remove any of the fake and slow torrents that we wouldn't want to download leaving us with high grade download material.”
Any regular downloader knows the usefulness of this sort of service as it easily allows you instant access to sites where you can find and grab the files you want – be they movies, songs, games, ebooks, etc.
While TorFinder is a free service where there are no subscriptions, or products to pay for, it links instead to other popular sites which do require you to buy accounts.
When searching for a title, the results will automatically display detailed info about the file you want: its location (the sites you can go to download the file), its size, the number of seeds and peers, the health of the download. A great feature is that the results are placed into different categories – when I entered Metallica, for example, I was given results under various such categories – from music and games (Guitar Hero – Metallica) to movies and eBooks (Best of Metallica – [Piano-Vocal-Chords]).
torfinder screenshot
Currently, TorFinder supports the following filesharing sites: TorrentReactor, isoHunt, FullDls, Fenopy, BTJunkie, TorrentBit, Extratorrent, KickAssTorrents, SuprNova, Monova, NewTorrents, SeedPeer, TorrentBox, ExtreamNova so there’s plenty of chances to find what you’re looking for. It also offers you the ability to tick off all these sites or just the ones you prefer in your searching and view 50 most recent searches.
As a final treat, on the homepage you will also be kept posted about what’s going on in the file sharing world with the latest information from specialized file sharing news sites.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/28/search-through-multiple-file-sharing-sites-with-torfinder/ Post LinkTop 10 Torrent Sites Soon Without Mininova
Posted on: February 27, 2010Compared to a year ago the BitTorrent landscape has changed significantly. The Pirate Bay decided to shut down its tracker last fall and a few weeks later Mininova partly shut down its website. However, with the fall of Mininova many new torrent sites emerged, with KickassTorrents being the most successful one.
It almost seems like history is repeating itself. Early 2005, just a few weeks after that period's leading torrent site, Suprnova.org, closed its doors, Mininova was founded. In the years that followed the site grew out to become the most visited torrent site. That growth was stunted in November 2009, when a negative verdict in a court battle against the local anti-piracy outfit BREIN forced the operators of the site to remove over a million torrents.
As expected Mininova's decision resulted in a disastrous drop in traffic, as its users spread out over other torrent sites including some promising newcomers. Today, three months after Mininova's downfall, the site is about to disappear from the top 10 list of most visited torrent sites. The Pirate Bay is currently leading the list closely followed by the meta-search engine Torrentz and isoHunt. KickassTorrents is currently in 9th place, which is a remarkable achievement consdering the site is only a few months old.
Below you'll find a list of the 10 most-visited torrent sites as of today. Only public and English language sites are included. The list is based on traffic rank reports from Compete, Alexa and SiteReport’s World Rank. The number of daily visitors and page views are estimates.
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#1 THEPIRATEBAY.ORG
- Daily Visitors: 4,600,136
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#2 TORRENTZ.COM
- Daily Visitors: 2,756,280
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#3 ISOHUNT.COM
- Daily Visitors: 2,285,811
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#4 BTJUNKIE.ORG
- Daily Visitors: 1,363,883
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#5 TORRENTREACTOR.NET
- Daily Visitors: 919,552
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#6 DEMONOID.COM
- Daily Visitors: 728,513
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#7 TORRENTDOWNLOADS.NET
- Daily Visitors: 686,219
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#8 MONOVA.ORG
- Daily Visitors: 670,536
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#9 KICKASSTORRENTS.COM
- Daily Visitors: 642,498
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#10 MININOVA.ORG
- Daily Visitors: 632,519
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Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/H791OjQr0DI/ Post LinkEuropean Parliamentarians Officially Declare Opposition to ACTA
Posted on: February 27, 2010As if things couldn't get any worse for supporters of the secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), they have. Members of European Parliament (MEPs) have submitted a written declaration that they oppose ACTA.
While the European Commission have been attempting to either evade questions on ACTA by going to the extreme of saying ACTA doesn't even exist or misleadingly suggest that ACTA is nothing more than a treaty targeting commercial counterfeiting/bootleg piracy even though it is common knowledge that ACTA is about the incredibly broad topic of copyright infringement, supporters of ACTA might have a new reason to be worried that the agreement in the publics eye is flying off the rails before it has even come close to being finalized.
La Quadrature Du Net is reporting that four MEPs have signed an official declaration that they oppose ACTA.
“This written declaration rightly expresses concerns about democratic circumvention and the risks that ACTA represents for fundamental freedoms. It is a strong platform for citizens to act against ACTA and help protect the Internet. Every European citizen who loves the Net must contact the MEPs from his country and urge them to sign this written declaration.” says Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for citizen advocacy group La Quadrature du Net.
At issue is the biggest problem that has plagued the treaty, the complete lack of transparency. The MEPs that have signed the agreement are Zuzana Roithova (CZ, EPP), Stavros Lambrinidis (GR, S&D), Alexander Alvaro (DE, ALDE) and Françoise Castex (FR, S&D).
Here's the declaration:
A. Whereas the ongoing negotiations concerning the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).
B. Whereas the co-decision role of the European Parliament in commercial matters and its access to negotiation documents guaranteed by the Lisbon Treaty,1. Considers that the proposed agreement should not indirectly impose harmonisation of EU copyright, patent or trademark law. The principle of subsidiarity should be respected,
2. Declares that the Commission should immediately make all documents related to the ongoing negotiations publicly available.
3. Takes the view that the proposed agreement should not force limitations upon judicial due process nor weaken fundamental rights such as freedom of expression and the right to privacy.
4. Stresses that the evaluation of economic and innovation risks must take place prior to introducing criminal sanctions where civil measures are already in place.
5. Considers that Internet service providers should not bear liability for the data they transmit or host through their services to an extent that would imply prior surveillance or filtering of such data.
6. Points out that any measure aimed at strengthening powers for cross-border inspection and seizures of goods should not harm global access to legal, affordable and safe medicines.
7. Instructs its President to forward this declaration, together with the names of the signatories, to the Commission, the Council and the parliaments of the Member States.
This latest move seems to be following a political trend around the world. Already, Charlie Angus of the NDP in Canada have not only voiced their concerns publicly about ACTA, but also have made a Facebook page that demands that ACTAs secrecy must end. US Senators have also done their part when they requested that ACTA be made public. Not to be left behind, politicians in New Zealand politicians voiced similar concerns as well about the transparency of ACTA.
The issue of transparency in ACTA has become a huge factor at this point on how palatable ACTA will become once it's made public. At this point, asking people to accept ACTAs secrecy is like asking them if they are fine if the planet blows up next week and there's no way off of it. Hardly anyone is going to find that acceptable and supporters of ACTA are running out of countries where politicians haven't voiced some form of concern about the transparency of ACTA. It's a simple problem where negotiators of ACTA are simply running out of excuses to keep ACTA secret because if there's any hope in salvaging any part of ACTA, be it good or bad, negotiators have to accept that this is a matter of public interest right now – not next year, not next month, now. Even if you are fully supportive of busting every file-sharer on Earth and ending p2p completely, some of those rare people have to be thinking by now, at the very least, “Why must we hide our strong message that piracy is wrong in ACTA at this stage in the game? Isn't it bad enough that we look like we have a lot to hide here?”
Either way, it is becoming the best way for politicians to connect with their voters. Say you are opposed to ACTAs secrecy and you'll get support pretty easily. The secrecy issue is starting to get absurd at this point and may be what will end up sinking ACTA completely.
Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.
SyncTheBits (StB) – Mobile BitTorrent Tracker Open Again
Posted on: February 27, 2010If you are on the lookout for private torrent trackers with content for mobile devices, one of the best sites catering this niche just opened signups. SyncTheBits’s (aka StB), latest open registration period comes almost 10 months since the last. StB tracks applications, games, themes, mobile optimized movies, ebooks, etc for a number of mobile platforms including iPhone, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm, PSP, Java, BlackBerry and more. It is one of the first specialized mobile trackers...
Battlefield Bad Company 2 Mouse and Keyboard Control Issues Only For Pirates?
Posted on: February 27, 2010There’s no need to reiterate the fact that Battlefield : Bad Company 2 is one of the most anticipated games of the year. Thanks to the success of previous installments, the series now seem to have millions of fans across the globe. BF : Bad Company 2 is scheduled to be released on the 2nd of March in North America, 3rd March in Russia and 5th March in Europe. However, like all PC and console games these days, the title has leaked online several days beforehand. RELOADED, a veteran group from...
How to fix steam_api.dll file missing error, crash in Napoleon : Total War
Posted on: February 27, 2010Well what do you know? Another Total War game has hit the gaming scene. Those of you who played Empire : Total War, must be eyeing this game with a little skepticism. Although it became a hit, ETW by no means was a perfect game. It felt a little unpolished and there were plenty of bugs present during the game’s initial release - some of those remain unresolved to date, even after 9 update patches. However, the story with Napoleon Total War is different – the game is seemingly free of...
TorrentFreak TV Season 2 Continues
Posted on: February 27, 2010TorrentFreak TV covers some of the best, most interesting or remarkable stories from the wonderful world of file-sharing. An (ad-free) HD version of this episode is available on EZTV.
As always, we're looking forward to your commentary. For questions or suggestions, feel free to contact the crew at tv@torrentfreak.com. We encourage contributions from viewers!
An iTunes feed is available here, and a regular RSS feed here.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/pk_x-vbEfb8/ Post LinkShareBus – DDL Forum For AFR Rips Of New & Retro Movies (English + Foreign)
Posted on: February 27, 2010There are lots and lots of Direct Download Link (DLL) forums around but there aren’t many that index retro or classic movies. ShareBus is one of those rare sites that index both new movies as well as rare gems from a bygone era. It indexes a huge collection of both English and non English flicks ranging from the latest blockbuster hits in U.S to rarely heard of movies released in far eastern countries (in addition to movies, TV series are also available). Indexed movies come in a wide variety...
Police Closes Russia's Most Popular Torrent Site
Posted on: February 27, 2010
Russia's largest file sharing website has been shut down by police for copyright infringement.
While this is not the first legal operation against such a site the premiere consists in being the first shutdown operation and it caused a torrent of protests. Part from this, an increasing number of users (currently more than a thousand) have started formed their own protest movement.
However, its owners wasted no time and in spite of impending legal charges, and registered torrents.ru under a different domain name, saving their database and clients.
“This out-of-the-blue decision is proof of the incompetence of our police. What was done was utterly illegal – you have to have a decision from the court before you can just cut off a website,” commented editor of Hacker magazine, Nikita Kislitsyn.
Emphasizing the danger of creating such a precedent Yury Romanov from the Community for Legal Exchange of Information said: “This is an alarm bell. Today it has happened to a torrent website, but tomorrow it could be anyone.”
Of course views upon the issue are split – one of Russia's leading film directors, Yury Grymov, for example, hailed the news:
“Piracy takes away ninety percent of our profits. It has destroyed cinema in this country and we can't finance the films we want as a result. It is high time the government did something about pirates.”
Watch below a video dealing with the shutdown (via RT):
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/26/police-closes-russias-most-popular-torrent-site/ Post LinkUK Consumer Group Calls for Copyright Law Reform
Posted on: February 26, 2010Notes that almost 3/4 of the population doesn't know what they're legally allowed to copy or record, and that copyright law reform is needed before the laws lose all credibility.
Consumer Focus, a UK consumer advocate group, recently commissioned a study of some 2,026 British adults aged 15 years and older to gauge a sense of their adherence to copyright laws in that country.
It found that it's practically impossible for consumers to infringe copyright law as part of their daily lives if they do not use digital technology, and is calling for copyright law reform before the laws lose all credibility.
Three out of four (73%) surveyed didn’t know what they're legally allowed to copy or record. Less than one in five (17%) knew it's illegal to rip a CD or DVD they purchased to a home PC for personal use, and only 15% knew it's illegal to copy a CD to an iPod.?Almost four in ten (38%) of those using either an iPod or MP3 player admit to copying CDs onto their player.
Consumer Focus points out that most copyright laws were written at a time when digital technologies did not exist, but that the pervasiveness of these new technologies means that these laws now affect people more than ever.
‘The credibility of UK copyright law has fallen through the floor.? Millions of consumers are regularly copying CDs or DVDs and are unaware they are breaching copyright law,” says Jill Johnstone, the group's International Director.
Eight out of ten (80%) consumers thought that copyright law should be updated now that we have digital technologies, with slightly more (82%) keen to see reforms striking a fair balance between the interests of consumers and artists.
“The world has moved on and reform of copyright law is inevitable, but it’s not going to update itself,” she adds. “If the Government wants consumers to respect copyright law they have to stop sitting on their hands and bring the law in line with the real world.”
Consumer Focus wants to see ‘fair use right’ exceptions introduced that would allow consumers to make copies of copyrighted work they have purchased provided they are for ‘non-commercial use’ – such as copying CDs or DVDs to play on a different device (format shifting).? It says ‘fair use rights’ would protect copyright holders’ exclusive rights, while providing exceptions to copying activities that cause no, or minimal, economic harm to the rights holders.
Considering consumers have purchased the product it only makes sense they be able to do with it as they please so long as it's for personal use. By interfering with their ability to do so it only gives consumers further impetus to use P2P and other methods to acquire the same content illegally since they'll be breaking the law anyways when they rip the CD to their iPod or transfer a DVD to their laptop.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
“Bribed” Pirate Bay Cop Now Heads Anti-Piracy Unit
Posted on: February 26, 2010
When the news got out that the lead investigator in the Pirate Bay case had been ‘rewarded‘ with a job for six months at Warner Bros., one of the plaintiffs in the trial, rumors of corruption and bribes were hard to hold back.
It later became clear that Keyzer had started working for the movie studio before the Pirate Bay investigation was closed, which obviously made things worse and fueled even more conspiracy theories.
Warner Bros. denied these allegations initially and stated that the investigator was not employed or paid by the movie studio while he was still working on the case.
Warner Bros. later retracted this statement and admitted that Jim Keyzer indeed started working for the movie studio before the Pirate Bay investigation was closed. This confession didn't sit well with the defendants in the Pirate Bay trial who responded by filing several complaints with the police, including an allegation of bribery.
The police looked into the complaints but decided not to investigate the case. “[there is] no reason to believe that a crime has been committed by anyone employed by the police,” the prosecutor's department stated.
That was the last we heard of Keyzer, who failed to show up at the Pirate Bay trial although he was listed as a witness. It was never a secret that after his six months at Warner Bros. he was welcomed back into the police force, but this week many were surprised to discover that he is now actually heading the IT Crime Unit.
One of the main tasks of Keyzer's unit is to investigate file-sharing related cases. Obviously this once again fuels rumors that Keyzer is not the most objective officer to fulfill this position, to say the least.
Christian Engstrom, who represents the Pirate Party in the European Parliament, is also baffled by the news and finds it highly suspicious that the movie studios are “allowed to buy their own policemen.”
The appeal of the Pirate Bay trial for which Keyzer supplied evidence is expected to be scheduled this summer.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/LosDUjokDak/ Post LinkRIAA: Google’s China Hack Ought to Make it Help Fight Piracy
Posted on: February 26, 2010RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol makes the extraordinary leap in thought by comparing hacker attempts to steal source code and spy on the gMail accounts of human rights activists to the RIAA's battle with illegal P2P.
The RIAA is always good for a few laughs, oftentimes going to extreme lengths to try and convince the public and businesses alike that P2P is the scourge of the Earth.
A casual example occurred just the other day when it and the MPAA jumped at the chance to reiterate the FTC's warnings to 100 unnamed organizations that personal information, including sensitive data about customers and/or employees, is available in on P2P networks, emphasizing the fact that the “abuse of P2P technology” is putting people at risk.
However, the latest and greatest op-ed released by the RIAA has to take the cake. In it Bainwol tries to intertwine the recent attempted hack into the gMail accounts of human rights activists and theft of the company's source code, which it dubs as intellectual property in the same vein as music, with its efforts to fight intellectual property “theft” on P2P networks.
“In texting parlance, Google has finally had an OMG! moment when it comes to intellectual property,” he writes. “Unfortunately, it took this theft of their IP to flip on the switch. Frankly, Google has never been very warm to the idea of copyright protections. Google routinely has sided with the “free access” (more aptly the “free of charge”) crowd against those who actually create the intellectual property.”
Never mind the fact, as Techdirt's Michael Masnick points out, that the stolen source code was never meant for sale or public consumption unlike the tracks and albums the music industry is having an increasingly tough time convincing people to buy in a crowded entertainment marketplace.
He even takes a swipe at its Google Books project whose sole purpose is to make knowledge more accessible to all, upset that some authors may not be able to profit as much from their works as they have in the past.
“Remember the Big G’s idea to digitize every book in the world and put it in their digital library? That went over so well that Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild of America sued to stop Google from creating the virtual library. Google argued that they were just trying to make the world a better place by making important works of literature available to people all over the globe,” he adds. “A rather egalitarian idea (unless you’re the authors and publishers who depend on people actually buying books in order for you to make a living).”
I doubt that many authors would have seen a diminished income from its plan, and in fact Google has already reached a $125 million dollar settlement deal with authors and publishers in exchange for the right to make millions of books available to the public.
But, the choice of argument makes one wonder if the RIAA is then against “egalitarian” ideas like increased access to, and this is in his own words, “important works of literature?” I can think of nothing more damaging for the RIAA to say, and truly makes it look more narrow minded than ever.
Worse still, Bainwol thinks that the record labels' failed business model is even in the same league as Google's. If that's the case then why is the latter's profits soaring while the RIAA's is declining?
“Like our friends at Google, we fully support the adoption of broadband and the new and exciting opportunities it provides for consumers to enjoy movies, television programs and music. We in the IP industries couldn’t live without these amazing technologies. In fact, digital accounts for a greater percentage of music industry revenues than movies, books and newspapers combined. We are partners with technology companies in the fullest sense of the word,” he writes.
Oh really? The same group that's pushing for ISP-level content filtering and “three-strikes” legislation is on the side of technology and consumers? It only likes either so long as they mean more profits.
Bainwol also makes the same tired argument that physical and digital theft, commercial and non-commercial, are the same, and that it's doing all it can to give consumers what they want.
“Yet there is no question that despite our extensive and innovative offerings of legal content, the levels of online and physical theft around the world extract a profound toll,” he writes. “That activity has a direct and harmful impact on American jobs and our economy. And as Google has found out, this illegal activity is exacerbated by the unwillingness of some—including some businesses and even some governments—to take reasonable steps to address these problems.”
First of all, the RIAA has no “extensive and innovate offerings of legal content” that I can think of, and it regularly interferes with individual efforts to make that leap by demanding huge upfront cash payments and large percentage of profits.
Second, there is a very real difference between physical and digital theft. The former is done for profit and the latter is not. An illegally downloaded song or album also doesn't always mean a lost sale, and in fact, oftentimes means an increase in legal music purchases.
Third, China's protection of its “hacker soldiers” is wholly unrelated to our own govt's unwillingness to enact the sort of “three-strikes” and filtering legislation it has long sought. It oddly wants us to stifle the flow of thoughts and speech by using the example of communist regime's attempts to do just that as its reason why we should.
Talk about idiotic.
But, I guess we've come to expect nothing less from a hair-brained organization like the RIAA. It's been 10yrs and it still hasn't managed to realize the music industry world is round after all.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
EDRI Publishes FAQ on ACTA
Posted on: February 26, 2010With all the confusion seemingly going through the European political scene regarding ACTA, it's nice to know that there are those out there that are willing to try and eliminate some of that confusion.
Already, the IMCO seems to have been having problems deciphering exactly what ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is. Meanwhile, another committee in the EU commission, the INTA, contained suggestions that ACTA didn't even exist. It would seem that the only thing more confusing then having so many acronyms in this article is the agreement that everyone is talking about in the first place. That's where the European Digital Rights (EDRI) appears to be jumping in to help fill a gap where there might otherwise be confusion.
The European Digital Rights (EDRI) have posted an FAQ on ACTA. The FAQ (PDF) targets specifically the internet chapter, the chapter that has caused the most controversy over the years since ACTA was first leaked online. The FAQ does a very nice job at targeting some of the known arguments put forth by supporters that really have wound up being untrue. Here's a few examples:
1. Is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) only about counterfeiting?
No. Counterfeiting involves the production of fake goods which fraudulently profit from trademark owners and harm consumers' confidence. ACTA does contain provisions strengthening enforcement against counterfeit goods, but it also covers a far greater range of issues, including mandated penalties for non-commercial copyright infringement, worldwide Internet regulation and world trade in generic medicines.
4. Does the ACTA Digital Enforcement chapter include a “three-strikes” Internet disconnection approach for alleged repeat copyright infringers?
Yes. Footnote 6 indicates that US negotiators intend that ISPs would be required to adopt Three Strikes Internet disconnection policies in order to get the benefit of “safe harbours” or limitations on lSPs' liability for copyright infringement. This chapter requires countries that sign on to ACTA to have, or introduce, secondary liability for ISPs for copyright infringement. In order to avoid or limit their liability, ISPs will want to take advantage of the safe harbours and will therefore feel obliged to adopt Three Strikes disconnection policies. Thus, although ACTA would not mandate signatory countries to pass Three Strikes legislation, Three Strikes would become the new global norm by creating powerful incentives for ISPs to adopt such measures via self regulation. This would avoid the democratic barriers faced by a Three Strikes systems based on the rule of law.
8. Didn't the European Commission promise that there would be no three strikes?
In response to Parliamentary question E-6094/2009 from Christian Engström MEP, the European Commission responded that:
“ACTA should not contain measures restricting end-users’ access to the Internet that would not be appropriate, proportionate and necessary within a democratic society and without a prior, fair and impartial procedure”.
Even without the admission in footnote 6 that exactly the contrary is proposed in ACTA, it is clear that placing liability on Internet access providers is likely to lead to such restrictions. Any significant level of ISP liability included in the final draft will be in obvious contradiction to the spirit, if not the letter, of the recently adopted EU telecoms package.
In response to the same question, the Commission also stated that “it is the Commission's view that ACTA is about tackling large scale illegal activity”. There is no attempt (nor indeed is it clear what attempt is possible) for ISP liability to be restricted to such activities. Unless it is the Commission's intention to reject any significant text on ISP liability, the Commission's response is misleading.
For those who are less familiar with ACTA and want to know more about this agreement, particularly if you are a European citizen, this FAQ is an excellent way to get informed.
Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.
Supreme Court Movie Piracy Case Could Reveal Wrong Person
Posted on: February 26, 2010
Max Manus, a World War II movie based on the real-life events of resistance fighter Max Manus was the most expensive Norwegian film production to date.
Inevitably, a version of the movie that had been recorded in an empty theater leaked onto the Internet. Producer John M. Jacobsen was furious, vowing to track down the leaker mercilessly.
An investigation controlled by notorious pirate hunter Espen Tøndel and the Simonsen law firm was launched. They later announced that they had tracked down the IP address from where the movie was first uploaded to the Internet.
After the police expressed disinterest, Simonsen went to the courts to force an ISP to reveal the identity of the individual behind the IP address. Much to the disappointment of transparency advocates in Norway, few people know the outcome of that case since it's being kept a secret. All we know is that one party wasn't happy with the verdict and the case is now off to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court will have to decide if it’s acceptable for privately owned companies with financial interests in the outcome of a case to be given the power to obtain the identity of an Internet subscriber behind an IP-address, whether or not they committed the alleged offense.
And “whether or not” is a key phrase here. Not only does an IP address alone fail to identify an individual sat at a keyboard, TorrentFreak has been provided with information which indicates that the person the investigators claim to be the first uploader of the movie is actually no such thing.
As with much pre-released material, the content first makes its way on to the Internet via so-called ‘Scene' groups. The Max Manus movie was first released by a group called KAMERA on a secure site on December 29th 2008 at 14:04:16.
A note the group included with the release reads: “We would recommend everyone to go and watch this movie in your local theater, and even buy the dvd/blu-ray when it hits the stores. This is a great movie, and it definitely deserves it!”
Instead of going after KAMERA, Simonsen are going after a much easier target – a secondary uploader who made his upload to a private BitTorrent tracker just under 3 hours later. Despite all the fuss, to date the movie has been downloaded just 2,800 times from the site it was released on.
Going through intermediaries, a source inside KAMERA confirmed to TorrentFreak they had nothing to do with the BitTorrent release but understandably declined to comment further. A source close to the group said they were disappointed that the movie had escaped onto the wider Internet due to all the publicity it's received.
The tactic of going for easy targets is nothing new for anti-piracy groups, especially if it grabs some headlines. In 2005, a ‘workprint' version of Star Wars Episode III leaked onto the Internet, put there by an previously unknown group called VISA. No member of this outfit was ever traced but the admins of EliteTorrents paid dearly for later making the movie available on BitTorrent.
In December 2009, following mountains of bad press and propaganda, Gilberto Sanchez, 47, was arrested at his home in the Bronx on charges of violating copyright law and now faces three years in prison and a $250,000 fine for supposedly being the infamous Wolverine ‘workprint' leaker. “I’m a scapegoat for this,” he later told the New York Times. “I’m gonna get crucified.”
Few believe that Sanchez was the original uploader of Wolverine and now it appears the mystery person behind the IP address in the Max Manus investigation is not the original uploader either. Whether his or her identity will be made available to the anti-piracy lawyers is now up to the Supreme Court to decide.
While the actual first leakers of pre-release material continue to remain utterly elusive, those who dare to leak onto the wider Internet will continue to shoulder all of the blame, thanks to the inability of anti-piracy groups to investigate any further.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/UCrWGInnEXY/ Post LinkTRAC3.ME – Public PreDB, Scene Release Index and Torrent Tracer
Posted on: February 25, 2010It was after seeing the feedback we received for the previous post that I decided to write this article. Apparently, a lot more people (than we initially thought) do care about pre times and torrent races. If you are interested in a multi role site that acts as scene releases index, a pre database as well as a web based torrent pre times tracker (aka a tracer) you might want to check out TRAC3.ME. Trace.M3 maintains a pre database that indexes hundreds of scene and p2p releases daily. However,...
Textbook Publishers’ Coalition Snatch Favorable Court Decision against RapidShare
Posted on: February 25, 2010
Popular file-hosting website RapidShare is required to implement restrictive measures for containing the unauthorized sharing of some copyrighted books listed on its service, following a German court ruling.
The order instituted on February 17 by the Landgericht in Hamburg mandated the website to withdraw the copyrighted books in cause immediately, and ensure that other protected publications will not be made available for sharing in the future.
The list of books covered under the court order contains no less than 148 titles, which the six major publishers’ coalition complained to have been the main targets for piracy on the file-sharing website. Should RapidShare’s executives break the court order, they will face stinging fines of up to 250,000 euros (the equivalent of approximately $340,000) or even risk detention times of up to two years.
RapidShare considers the verdict unreasonable and is determined to file an appeal, Katharina Scheid, spokesperson on behalf of the file-hosting site, informed in an e-mail interview. Sheid declared the company had reacted promptly to withdraw any copyrighted material submitted by users once instructed to do so by the officials and the website respects all legal requirements concerning copyright. However, the German district court had also mandated RapidShare to raise its standards regarding prevention of illegal material from infiltrating its services, a more problematic aspect.
Ms. Scheid, of RapidShare, justified that the implementation of more restrictive measures would paradoxically render the website in violation of existing Germany privacy laws. She added that the country’s current laws set very fine lines when it comes to assessing whether to bend certain privacy policies to ensure the protection of copyright, and due to this fact, she believes there will be more trials on this matter.
The publishers behind the lawsuit against RapidShare are some of the largest in their branch and include prominent names such as Bedford, Freeman & Worth, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, the McGraw-Hill Companies, Pearson, and John Wiley & Sons.
One of the main reasons the publishers insisted for the legal proceedings to take place in Germany is the sympathy enjoyed from the country’s courts, which has lead to many other positive rulings in the past. Mr. Allen, of the publishers' association, appreciates the respect and understanding showed by the German courts, as well as their promptitude in solving copyright infringement cases.
US Government Consults Public On Illegal File-Sharing
Posted on: February 25, 2010The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act was one of the last pieces of legislation passed by President Bush back in 2008. The purpose of the act is to toughen current anti-piracy measures.
Among other things the act calls for harsher punishments, the creation of a dedicated FBI anti-piracy unit and a copyright czar who reports directly to the White House. Last year President Obama appointed Victoria Espinel as the new copyright czar and she is now going full steam ahead with the new anti-piracy plans.
For these new plans Espinel is now looking for comments and input from the United States public. Although this might come across as an open and transparent process, the czar already seems to have made up her mind, indicated by the leading nature of the questions.
Yesterday a request for written submissions from the public went out and the copyright czar wants answers to two basic questions, answers that may or may not be used for the development of the new anti-piracy plans. Let's take a look at what the Government is asking.
In the request we read that the first question the public should respond to is “regarding the costs to the U.S. economy resulting from intellectual property violations, and the threats to public health and safety created by infringement.”
The second part deals with “detailed recommendations from the public regarding the objectives and content of the Joint Strategic Plan and other specific recommendations for improving the Government's intellectual property enforcement efforts.”
To summarize, the copyright czar wants the public to come up with examples and ideas detailing how piracy affects society and how it should be combated. Unfortunately the request seems to indicate that it is already concluded that piracy has a negative impact and that tougher measures are needed.
It is not too late of course to prove the opposite and voice our concerns. Let's elaborate a little on the two questions.
The first question is an easy one. Although piracy might hurt some parts of the entertainment industry there is no objective and conclusive report that proves how it negatively effects the entire industry, let alone the United States economy as a whole.
One of the most authoritative reports on the economic and cultural consequences of file-sharing on the music, movie and games industries was published last year. The report, which was commissioned by the government, estimated that file-sharing has a positive effect on the Dutch economy. While it was recognized that the entertainment industry suffers some losses, these don’t outweigh the positive effects of file-sharing.
Other academic publications mainly show that music piracy has no, or a positive effect on actual sales. The more people download through illegal channels, the more they tend to pay for music. This indicates that music fans do want to pay for music but that they download in addition, which could be due to the lack of unlimited download services.
The second question posed by the czar deals with the enforcement side of copyright infringement. One of the main questions here is how to deter people from downloading files illegally.
Again we'd like to start off with pointing to the Dutch report mentioned earlier. In the report it was concluded that measures to combat piracy should not be implemented before the entertainment industries have come up with sufficient legal online alternatives. This suggests that the entertainment industries are in part causing piracy by failing to offer decent competitive DRM-free products.
Furthermore, it is very doubtful that harsher punishments and stricter enforcement will have any effect. Last year the RIAA won two major lawsuits against individual file-sharers and this hasn't changed the attitude or behavior of the average file-sharer at all. If anything, tougher enforcement will drive piracy underground, motivating the public to hide their identities online.
The bottom line is that the enforcement question is irrelevant. Technology will always stay ahead of any new type of legislation. The new three-strikes law in France for example can be easily circumvented and the same will be true for other measures. Much more can be done by focusing on the core of the problem, that is, taking away the incentive to download illegally.
The issues we have briefly touched on here are just the tip of the iceberg, and we assume that our readers can easily list many more. If so, please take this opportunity to have your voices heard. The US Pirate Party, who alerted us about this public consultation, has a mailing form which you can use, but regular email works fine too. For those who plan to comment we would advise to include as many credible references as possible.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/18SOGXOjrCI/ Post LinkAFACT Appeals Loss of BitTorrent Case Against ISP
Posted on: February 25, 2010iiNet reiterates that the “case has not stopped one illegal download and further legal appeals will not stop piracy,” and that it would be better served providing the inexpensive legal alternatives that file-sharers are demanding.
The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), representing some 34 film companies in that country, today filed an expected appeal of its loss in a landmark copyright infringement case against Australian ISP iiNet in which it tried to hold iiNet responsible for customers using BitTorrent to download files illegally.
It says the “judgment that has left an unworkable online environment for content creators and content providers and represents a serious threat to Australia’s digital economy.”
It plans to once argue that iiNet had the power to stop copyright infringement on its network by suspending or terminating the accounts of suspected file-sharers, and that AFACT's notifications of their occurrence, and iiNet's subsequent failure to act makes it complicit in the crime.
“The court found large scale copyright infringements, that iiNet knew they were occurring, that iiNet had the contractual and technical capacity to stop them and iiNet did nothing about them,” says AFACT Executive Director Neil Gane. “In line with previous case law, this would have amounted to authorization of copyright infringement.”
Gane also claimed the ruling rendered the safe harbor regime ineffective.
“This decision allows iiNet to pay lip service to provisions that were designed to encourage ISPs to prevent copyright infringements in return for the safety the law provided, he added. “If this decision stands, the ISPs have all the protection without any of the responsibility. By allowing internet companies like iiNet to turn a blind eye to copyright theft, the decision harms not just the studios that produce and distribute movies, it but also Australia’s creative community and all those whose livelihoods depend on a vibrant entertainment industry.”
iiNet managing director Michael Malone has already emphasized the fact that both parties have wasted at least $10-$15 million and counting on the trial that could’ve been better used to create a legal online content service instead.
He's now responded to the report of AFACT's anticipated appeal by lamenting once again the misguided nature of their efforts and waste of resources on a problem with no technical solution.
“It is more than disappointing and frustrating that the studios have chosen this unproductive path,” he added. “This legal case has not stopped one illegal download and further legal appeals will not stop piracy. “The studios themselves admitted during the court hearings that making content freely and cheaply available online was an effective way to combat piracy.”
Exactly. P2P is only prevalent because copyright holders refuse to offer them viable alternatives. People in Australia don't want to wait until TV studios decide when and where they can watch the latest episodes of The Office or Lost, and blaming ISPs only exacerbates the problem.
The appeal is likely to be heard later this year.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
Can Google Secure a Safe Haven for BitTorrent Sites?
Posted on: February 25, 2010
Much like Google, The Pirate Bay and isoHunt are search engines that aim to index information posted on the Internet and make it findable to their users.
Google's YouTube shows even more similarities to torrent sites as it allows users to submit content, with the only difference being that YouTube actually hosts the uploaded files whereas torrent sites only link to content indirectly through .torrent files.
In the last year, three of the largest torrent sites – The Pirate Bay, Mininova and isoHunt – were all taken to court by copyright holders for assisting in copyright infringement, and all three sites lost their cases to some degree. Strangely enough Google has never said a word about these cases other than to distance themselves from The Pirate Bay team after they were sentenced.
Despite this attempt at demarcation, three Google employees are now in a very similar position as the aforementioned torrent site operators. An Italian court just handed out suspended jail sentences to three Google employees for ‘allowing' users to upload a video that invaded the privacy of a third person.
The three employees were not aware of the upload before they were notified by the police, but they made it possible, much like they make it possible to upload copyrighted content. The similarities with torrent search engines are striking.
It is needless to say that Google is not amused by the court ruling. While the company kept its mouth shut in response to the legal actions surrounding the torrent search engines, they now speak of an attack on “the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built.”
“Common sense dictates that only the person who films and uploads a video to a hosting platform could take the steps necessary to protect the privacy and obtain the consent of the people they are filming,” Google's Matt Sucherman wrote in a blog post yesterday.
This response from Google does indeed seem logical, and we can easily apply the same reasoning to sites that index and host .torrent files. The operators of torrent sites and video sites can't possibly verify and screen the content of all uploaded files. This is something the site's users should be held accountable for.
This doesn't mean of course that the site's operators should ignore the law. The Pirate Bay for example has always been very responsive to requests from the police concerning illegal material linked to by the site. IsoHunt goes even further as it actively works together with copyright holders and Mininova even allowed copyright holders to prevent infringing torrents from being re-uploaded in the future.
According to Google such policies should be good enough to operate a site like YouTube without running into legal trouble.
“European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy,” Sucherman writes.
So here we have Google in a similar position as most torrent sites are in. Although the Italian verdict is outrageous the obvious upside is that unlike the torrent sites, Google has the financial power to successfully fight the verdict. According to former Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde, Google got what it deserved.
“It's good that someone takes on Google for a change. Let them take the heat for once – and let them make sure that other sites that they've previously had no problem filtering, that basically do the same as them, don't end up in this shit the next time,” Sunde told TorrentFreak.
“I think it's good that time has finally caught up Google. Maybe now we have a level playing field here. They have to take the fight as well. Previously they only said nice things about how important the Internet was, and then ignored all of the things going on. Even supporting them – China for instance,” he added.
“A big player like Google has the financial muscles to fight this thing. And we all know that Italy is just full of rules made by Berlusconi, for Berlusconi,” Sunde said, adding, “That fascist needs to go.”
Google has indeed committed itself, and said it “will vigorously appeal this decision.” The whole case revolves around the question of whether or not the operators of media portals and search engines should be held accountable for the actions of their users.
In recent months Italian courts have clearly answered positively to this question. They have opened the door for a nationwide block of file-sharing sites and with yesterday's decision file and video hosting sites are not safe any longer either. So the next question is, can Google secure a safe haven for torrent sites?
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/X8IA5HBZfps/ Post LinkAFACT Blasts Judge, Will Appeal iiNet ISP Liability Decision
Posted on: February 25, 2010
Earlier this month it was celebrations all round for the operators of Aussie ISP iiNet, as they successfully defended a Hollywood movie studio legal onslaught directed by AFACT, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft.
Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network took iiNet to court, claiming that the ISP did nothing to stop its customers from sharing copyright media via BitTorrent and was therefore liable for their infringements.
Judge Justice Dennis Cowdroy disagreed, and handed a huge victory to iiNet.
Today marked the deadline for AFACT to appeal the decision and as expected, they did just that.
In a statement the anti-piracy group said there were good grounds to appeal a judgment which it is dramatically claiming has left an “unworkable environment for content creators and content providers and represents a serious threat to Australia’s digital economy.”
AFACT boss Neil Gane said the judgment conflicted with established copyright law in Australia.
“The court found large scale copyright infringements, that iiNet knew they were
occurring, that iiNet had the contractual and technical capacity to stop them and iiNet did nothing about them,” he said. “In line with previous case law, this would have amounted to authorization of copyright infringement.”
Gane went on to state that the ruling rendered so-called 'safe harbor' provisions of copyright ineffective. “If this decision stands, the ISPs have all the protection without any of the responsibility,” he said.
AFACT's appeal, filed with the Fedral Court today, consists of 15 areas where they believe Justice Cowdroy got it wrong. An analysis of the appeal grounds can be found here.
Chief of iiNet, Michael Malone, said Justice Cowdroy's judgment was unequivocal and the company is confident the Court will stand by its original ruling, noting that more legal proceedings will not provide a solution.
“It is more than disappointing and frustrating that the studios have chosen this unproductive path,” Mr Malone said in a statement. “This legal case has not stopped one illegal download and further legal appeals will not stop piracy.
“The studios themselves admitted during the court hearings that making content freely and cheaply available online was an effective way to combat piracy. People are crying out to access the studios materials, so much so some are prepared to steal it. A more effective approach would be for the studios to make their content more readily and cheaply available online,” notes Malone.
Upon losing the original trial, AFACT was ordered to pay iiNet’s legal costs, revealed to be $5.7 million ($5.08 million USD). Earlier this week AFACT said it will return to court in order to avoid paying some of the costs.
The appeal hearing for the original case is likely be held this year and according to iiNet's Michael Malone, it should take up significantly fewer days than first time around.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/oEIUWwYibTg/ Post LinkGrabatorrent.com: New Place to Grab Movies & Music
Posted on: February 25, 2010
Grabatorrent.com is a new file sharing website where music and movie buffs can search for and download their favorite artists and flicks or discover new content in terms of entertainment.
The site’s main categories (besides the ones for each of its specific type of files) are: new movies, most popular movies, new albums, most popular albums, new series, most popular series; you can also check out the site’s top most downloaded movies, music albums or series. If you've used another popular site, Coda.fm, before then downloading music with Grabatorrent will be quite familiar.
grabatorrent - music
A nice feature (which is still under development) is the ability to browse content by artists, when searching for music, or by actors, when searching for movies. Each movie comes with a full description of its cast and other useful info. Also quite useful, when clicking a specific genre, the site lists alphabetically all the movies included in that genre.
All the films and music albums the site offers come with the original cover arts. We liked that you get detailed info about artists, album reviews, even the official releasing date, track listing,? and the number of downloads for each album.
We’re waiting more content on Grabatorrent – the site could use some improvements but being at an early stage let’s give it some time: ‘We launched just a while ago, Please, help us grow and build a great community for everyone to enjoy.’
grabatorrent - movies
STUDY: Number of Music Buyers Down 21% Since 2007
Posted on: February 25, 2010NPD Group claims 24 million fewer people bought music in 2009, and that more troublingly, despite a decrease in the amount of music files being shared on P2P networks, the number of people buying digital music declined as well.
Consumer and retail market research firm NPD Group spelled out a long list of troubling statistics at a gathering of music and technology executives at the Digital Music East conference yesterday that highlight an industry in transition.
Russ Crupnick, one of the group's senior industry analysts, first estimated that 24 million fewer people bought music in 2007 as compared to 2009. That's a 21% drop in customers, a figure sure to raise more than a few eyebrows, myself included.
Unsurprisingly there were 33 million fewer CD buyers in the US, and 24 million fewer music buyers worldwide. Total music spending also fell by 19%, but spending by individual consumer actually rose by 2%. Spending by digital music listeners was even up from $33 to $50 per year.
However, even more disturbing for record labels is that the number of people buying digital music – the CD's replacement and the hopeful savior of the music industry – has declined as well, down to 34.6 million from 35.2 million.
This decline nicely mirrors an NPD Group study from last April that found teens acquired 19% less music, both legally and illegally, in 2008 than they did in 2007. This includes a 6% decline in usage of P2P networks to download music illegally, meaning the music industry's woes are much greater than illegal file-sharing as it would often have you believe.
That study also found that one of the reasons for the decline in music acquisitions by teens is due to changes in the way they listen to music. More teens are choosing free online music streaming sites like Pandora or Last.fm than ever before.
So what is the music industry to do? Crupnick emphasized that the increase in per person music consumption was reason for optimism.
With so many alternative entertainment options these days he suggested that consumers need further incentive to buy, and that record labels should try bundling songs in a package like perhaps 3 for $1.
“You got some maturity in the marketplace,” said Crupnick. “If I ran a record label, the first thing I would do is go out and hire a consumer promotion person from Kraft or Colgate. The consumer is saying they wanted to be promoted to and persuaded to come try this.”
These comments echo what Pharrell Williams, Billboards’ producer of the decade, and Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, said this past January at a music industry trade fair when he recommended artists “market” themselves and chase advertisers rather than record labels.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
Tenenbaum Saga Continues: Damages to Music Industry – Only $21
Posted on: February 25, 2010
Joel Tenenbaum
Here comes another post reporting about the student whom the RIAA famous in an unfortunate way. After carrying a disproportionate war in court against the four major accusing record labels, Joel Tenenbaum, the person brought to trial for allegedly sharing 30 songs on the Internet, had to face the reality of an even more disproportionate verdict. The man was ultimately mandated to pay damage awards of $675,000, despite having caused no more than $21 in damages, his lawyer, Harvard University Professor Charles Nesson pointed out in a statement to the press.
Nesson explained that application of the 1999 federal law for establishing the damages Joel Tenenbaum had to pay was unfunded and had “produced absurd results”, which violated his client’s constitutional rights.
“If Tenenbaum had bought the songs legally on iTunes, the student would have paid 99 cents for each, and Apple would have passed on 70 cents for each to the labels, bringing the total damage to $21”, Nesson stressed out. Tenenbaum’s lawyer also expressed his profound discontentment with the 1999 federal law, which in his opinion, should not have been enacted in the first place as it virtually undermines the judgment and reputation of the US Congress.
In defense to Nesson’s claims, Timothy M. Reynolds – lawyer of the accusing record companies – declared that Tenenbaum was the only one to blame for the outcome in the courtroom. Although Tenenbaum seemingly managed to win the sympathy of Judge Nancy Gertner, who admitted the calculated damage awards were excessively high compared to the gravity of the case, the man was still ordered to pay the $675,000 to the record labels.
However, the $675,000 verdict decided in the Tenenbaum case is dwarfed by even more unrealistic damage awards calculated in US courts over the last few years. The best example is the two million dollars Jammie-Thomas-Rasset was mandated to pay the record labels for allegedly sharing 24 songs online.
FTC Notifies 100 Companies about Leaked Data onto P2P
Posted on: February 24, 2010
On Monday The U.S. Federal Trade Commission launched a warning to nearly 100 organizations, revealing that data from their networks has leaked on p2p (peer-to-peer) file-sharing networks.
Apparently, employees at the institutions, including companies, schools and local governments, accidentally shared online sensitive data (like financial data, social security numbers, and drivers licenses numbers), exposing them to identity theft and other cybercrimes.
"Unfortunately, companies and institutions of all sizes are vulnerable to serious P2P-related breaches, placing consumers' sensitive information at risk. For example, we found health-related information, financial records, and drivers' license and Social Security numbers–the kind of information that could lead to identity theft. Companies that distribute P2P programs, for their part, should ensure that their software design does not contribute to inadvertent file sharing," said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz.
According to the agency said it has conducted separate investigations of some companies as a result of its file-swapping inquiry, but no names of companies or further details have been given.
"It is your responsibility to protect such information from unauthorized access, including taking steps to control the use of P2P software on your own networks and those of your service providers," the FCC added.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/24/ftc-notifies-100-companies-about-leaked-data-onto-p2p/ Post LinkRapidShare Ordered To Proactively Filter Book Titles
Posted on: February 24, 2010
On February 4th 2010, several large book publishers filed a lawsuit against file-hosting site, RapidShare. The plaintiffs, Bedford, Freeman & Worth and Macmillan, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, The McGraw-Hill Companies and Pearson, are large suppliers of textbooks.
The lawsuit cited 148 titles to which the publishers own the copyright, and demanded that RapidShare stop user-uploaded electronic versions of the same being made available to the public via their file-hosting service.
On February 10th 2010, the District Court in Hamburg handed down a preliminary ruling against RapidShare which ordered that by February 17th the company must stop the book titles named in the lawsuit being made available on their website.
The Court ruled that RapidShare must monitor user uploads to ensure that none of the book titles are put onto their servers and go on to ensure that the public never gains access to copies that somehow slip through this filtering.
According to Inside Higher Ed, every time a prohibited book named in the injunction is made available on RapidShare it could cost the company up to 250,000 euros ($339,000) or even earn company bosses 2 years in jail.
“This ruling is an important step forward. Not only does it affirm that file-sharing copyrighted content without permission is against the law, but it attaches a hefty financial punishment to the host, in this case Rapidshare, for noncompliance,” said Tom Allen, CEO of the Association of American Publishers. “Consider this a shot across the bow for others who attempt to profit from the theft of copyrighted works online,” he added.
While there is little doubt that copyright material is indeed available via RapidShare, a press release by the book publishers oversteps the mark a little by stating that the company “encourages the unauthorized uploading of content with a variety of reward programs.” While RapidShare could be accused of many things, openly encouraging its customers to upload pirate material is not one of them.
This is not the first time that RapidShare has been ordered to filter content. In 2009, the Regional Court in Hamburg ruled that the company must pro-actively filter around 5,000 music tracks from music industry group GEMA's catalog to prevent them being made available to the public.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/h42V-JYNpqk/ Post LinkBTN Invite Applications Now Online – Ratio Free TV Tracker
Posted on: February 24, 2010For several years, the private TV Torrent tracker scene has been dominated by three major players – BitMeTV, TVTorrents.Com and Tv.Torrents.Ro. Although there have been many smaller sites popping up on a regular basis, no one has really been able to pose a challenge for these three tracker so far. This however might soon change. Several promising new TV trackers have launched in the last couple of months that seem to have the potential to be the next BMTV (or even more). One of them is STR...
SweNews – A Web Based Tracer For Swedish Torrent Trackers
Posted on: February 24, 2010During the past few days we’ve continuously been posting about new private torrent trackers. Well here’s something different – SweNews is related to private trackers but is not a private tracker. It’s a web based service that traces torrents from 8 leading Swedish private torrent sites. It’s somewhat of a cross between reduced functionality version of Tottler and a pre database. The homepage of SweNews indexes a list of HDTV releases, DVDR releases and HD movie releases. Clicking on a release...
Court: Don’t Need Warrant to Seize P2P Files
Posted on: February 24, 2010Rules installation of file-sharing software negates any reasonable expectation of privacy, and that, although the person may have intended to make his shared files private, his “technical savvy” failed him.
I don't think anybody would argue the govt doesn't have the authority to confiscate content accessed over a public P2P network like Limewire to use as part of a criminal investigation, but apparently Charles A. Borowy of Nevada did just that before the US Circuit of Appeals.
Borowy tried to claim that authorities unconstitutionally obtained evidence against him in a child pornography case because they failed to obtain a court order as required by the 4th amendments protection from warrantless search and seizure.
Back On May 3, 2007, Special Agent Byron Mitchell logged onto LimeWire and used the search term “Lolitaguy” to find a list of child porn content which he later verified via hash marks. After selecting one of the IP addresses responsible for making the content available, he then used the “browse host” feature to view the entirety of Borowy's “shared” folder, some 240 files in all.
Agent Mitchell then downloaded the files and obtained a search warrant which led to the seizure of Borowy’s laptop computer, CDs, and floppy disks. Forensic examination of these items later revealed he had more than 600
images of child pornography, including seventy-five videos in his possession.
Borowy argued that because he had purchased and installed the newer version of LimeWire that allows the user to prevent others from downloading or viewing files on his computer without his permission, and because he attempted to engage this feature, he had a “reasonable expectation of privacy in the files” reads the ruling.
“However, for whatever reason, this feature was not engaged when Agent Mitchell downloaded the seven files from Borowy’s computer, and there was no restriction on Agent Mitchell’s accessing those files,” reads the ruling.
The court ruled that Borowy lost his reasonable expectation of privacy the moment he decided to install a file-sharing program on his computer, and that, although he may have intended to make his shared files private, his “technical savvy” failed him.
So the lesson here for file-sharers (not of child pornography, pedophiles please move along) is that you need to get a handle on your “shared” folder and ensure you're only making content available on purpose and not accidentally. The latest versions of Limewire make it much harder to share content without your permission.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
[Hat Tip]
EU Commission on ACTA – ‘There is no Treaty’
Posted on: February 24, 2010It appears as though confusion and mixed signals continue to plague the EU commission in more than one committee.
Movement in North America on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) may have slowed down today, but the issue is definitely heating up in Europe. Fresh on the heals of the IMCA experiencing difficulty in understanding ACTA, the INTA (European Parliament's Trade committee) committee had some more dramatic commentary in the European parliament.
IPTegrity is reporting that the European Commission is currently trying to avoid serious questions about transparency regarding the elusive treaty. When asked about whether European Parliamentarians will be able to have access to the text of ACTA, there was quite a remarkable answer: “we are being asked about things which do not exist yet. There is no Treaty. We cannot give what does not exist”
It's quite a remarkable statement so late in the debate. There have already been several leaks over the years throughout the ACTA process. Not only have their been repeated international calls to have ACTA transparent, but legal procedures designed to keep world governments transparent though things like the Freedom of Information Act (US) and Access to Information Act (Canada) have all been met with tight-lipped responses. At one point, the US said that ACTA was a national security issue and must be kept a state secret – although one might note that ACTA is currently one of the worst kept secrets in the world of copyright these days.
One might observe that had such a comment been made when the earliest leaks were made, such a comment might be forgivable, but now, denying the existence of ACTA is pretty much a few years too late.
The posting also contains the following:
Schlyter also raised a very important point of order. He claims to have received information from the Commissioner, Karel de Grucht, which contradicts certain points made by the Commission representative today. He asked for the Commissioner to be present at future briefings.
The Commission said that ACTA will not alter the framework of rights available. It would not alter substantive IP law, or go outside the acquis communitaire and “will not address fundamental rights”. He also said “ACTA is not about imposing 3-strikes” (but I have a note on my pad that he was looking down as he said it). Later he also said ” a generalisation of 3-strikes rules will certainly not be in the EU position” – whatever that means.
Again, we must refer to our previous report on ACTA and quote the following from ACTA:
3. Each Party recognize that some persons use the services of third parties, including online
service providers, for engaging in copyright or related rights infringement. Each Party also
recognizes that legal uncertainty with respect to application of intellectual property rights,
limitations, exceptions, and defenses in the digital environment may present barriers to the
economic growth of, and opportunities in, electronic commerce. Accordingly, in order to
facilitate the continued development of an industry engaged in providing information
services online while also ensuring that measures take adequate and effective action against
copyright or related rights infringement are available and reasonable, each Party shall:[...]
(b) condition the applicantion of the provisions of subparagraph (a) on meeting
the following requirements:
(I) an online service provider adopting and reasonably implementing a policy ^6 to address the unauthorized storage or transmission of materials protected by copyright or related rights^6 An example of such a policy is providing for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscriptions and accounts in the service provider’s system or network of repeat infringers.
This draft text, as a matter of fact, makes it perfectly clear that ACTA is, indeed, about pressuring countries to enforce a policy where accused copyright infringers would be disconnected from the internet or repeat infringers. A three strikes policy as it is understood today is a policy where if a person is accused of copyright infringement three times, they would be disconnected from the internet. There's no system of countering the accusations and there is no court oversight – although France was forced to put in place weak court oversight on the third strike.
It is unnerving to some to see officials keep up such a smoke and mirrors policy. We've already seen some officials barely even grasp the basic facts about ACTA and yet they are the same people who are dictating the policy. Questions could easily be raised over who is really pulling the string, though as of October of 2009, that was pretty obvious (Re: BSA, IIPA, members of the MPAA, CCIA, etc.)
Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.
New File-Sharing Legislation in New Zealand
Posted on: February 24, 2010
When the New Zealand Government pushed forward for new legislation to address the problem of illegal file-sharing back in 2008, it received harsh criticism which eventually led to the plans being abandoned since “guilty upon accusation” elements (Section92A) seemed too much.
Yesterday, as TorrentFreak reports, Commerce Minister Simon Power introduced The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill meant to dismiss Section 92A and implement instead a modified regime which aims at cutting back online piracy.
However, as things often go with politics – changes have been made only in appearances, the essence remains virtually unchanged. While another softer term was found to describe the legislation – “three notice” regime which replaced the notorious “three-strikes (and-you’re-out)” one – the idea is pretty much the same – the bill will allow copyright holders to ask for damages and forward requests to have certain users suspected of illegal file sharing cut off from their internet connection.
Section92A was mostly condemned for not allowing a user who has been accused of infringement the right to reply and, in this sense, improvements have been made – the legislation will extend the jurisdiction of the country’s Copyright Tribunal, which will hear both sides of the argument and will be given power to decide on cases of alleged copyright infringement.
“The major feature is the three-notice process, which educates the public about illegal file sharing and provides effective methods for copyright owners to enforce their copyright,” said Power. “It ensures that file sharers are given adequate warnings that unauthorised sharing of copyright works is illegal.”
He goes on saying: “It’s important that account holders are given a reasonable time to stop infringing before enforcement takes place. The bill prescribes timeframes so account holders have the opportunity to address illegal file sharing activity occurring on their internet connection before enforcement action is taken. They will also have the chance to challenge notices and may request hearings at the Copyright Tribunal to contest infringement claims.”
The Tribunal will also be empowered to order repeat infringers to pay damage compensations up to $15,000 ($10,539 USD) – with the exact amount linked to damages the copyright holders have allegedly suffered – and also order the suspension of Internet subscriptions for six months.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/24/new-file-sharing-legislation-in-new-zealand/ Post LinkUK PM: “We Will Not Disconnect File-Sharers”
Posted on: February 24, 2010Prime Minister responds to online petition asking that he abandon plans by Lord Mandelson to ban individual file-sharers from the Internet, saying that he finds it “very hard to see how this could be deemed proportionate except in the most extreme – and therefore probably criminal – cases.”
It turns out sometimes petitions do work. Such is the case with a UK e-petition created a while back for consideration by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and which he just recently responded to.
The e-petition, apparently part of a more simplified effort to convey public opinion as part of a long tradition of petitioning the govt for action, concerns controversial plans by Business Secretary Lord Mandelson to disconnect file-sharers from the Internet.
It asks that the Prime Minister abandon this strategy, warning of the danger of having ISPs monitor network traffic for signs of copyright infringement in flagrant disregard of personal privacy and free speech.
The e-petition reads:
The use of P2P is neither illegal nor exclusive to copyright theft. Many free software providers use this form of distribution, as does the BBC’s iPlayer. If citizens are innocent until proven guilty, ISP’s would be forced to monitor internet usage to ensure that no copyrighted material is being transferred. This flagrant disregard for privacy is comparable to forcing the Post Office to search through parcels for photocopied documents or mixtape cassettes. Such requirements would place enormous strain on ISP’s whilst failing to prevent the distribution of copyrighted material through hidden IP’s, http or ftp. Who is punished in the case of shared family connections? The increasing role of the internet in access to society should not be underestimated. Cutting off households deprives families of education, government services and freedom of speech. We do not see this as a fitting punishment, nor do we believe the breaches in privacy involved to be justifiable under copyright law.
The PM's office has now published its response, and it's seemingly taken their concerns to heart.
First and foremost it says that the Government will not disconnect file-sharers from the Internet, saying that “it is very hard to see how this could be deemed proportionate except in the most extreme – and therefore probably criminal – cases.”
It will, however, reserve some powers obliging ISPs to apply “technical measures” that might include throttling, a data cap, or temporary Internet account suspension, so it's not entirely toothless.
However, it adds that if technical measures are required to achieve a desired decrease in illegal file-sharing that “we would need a rapid and robust route of appeal available to all consumers.”
Also important is that it won't require ISPs to monitor network traffic for signs of copyright infringement, and emphasizes that it is the uploader, he who shares copyrighted material, and not the downloader that is targeted in these cases.
“We are not requiring ISPs to monitor for unlawful file-sharing,” it says. “Nor are we proposing that ISPs look at what users download in order to combat piracy.”
“Under the legislation, it is the rights holders who will identify cases of alleged copyright infringement, not the ISPs.”
It remains to be seen precisely what technical measures it plans to implement, but at least – for now anyways – disconnection seems to be off the table.
Sadly though, it's fairly obvious to all, or to file-sharers at least, that any plans they come up with, short of DPI, will have no fundamental effect on piracy or P2P aside from targeting the naive and unsuspecting.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
New Search Engine for RapidShare, MegaUpload and Uploading.com
Posted on: February 24, 2010
General-Search.com is another site serving as a file search engine for popular file hosting services like RapidShare, MegaUpload and Uploading.com (which means, for those unfamiliar with this sort of search engine websites, – it doesn’t host or distribute itself any file, it merely helps you locate a certain file on those aforementioned sites which do have limited free-of-charge offerings but base their services on premium accounts – they charge for various types of accounts that allow you to download and upload online content).
The site claims its main feature of it is an exclusive database of Uploading.com file share system but we’re not exactly sure what that means. There some good features on the site like the sections Top searches and Latest Searches which can inspire you for material to download but also can give you an idea of the current downloading trends on the site. You can use the site to search for various types of files, of course – audio, video, applications, pictures, texts, CDs/DVDs. Just type in the title you want and the results should appear pretty quickly.
As a downside – General-Search.com could use some improvement in the esthetical area – some of the fonts there, for example, are really horrible.
To date, the site links to 4746162 files you can download.
Illegal Recording of The Dark Knight Costs Man Two Years in Prison
Posted on: February 23, 2010
Since the measures against non-commercial file sharing are getting increasingly drastic one can easily guess the risk involved by recording illegally a film for personal profit.
Missouri man Robert Henderson of Grandview learned that the hard way – after being arrested for camcording The Dark Knight in a theater and selling the flick on DVD, he was given two years in federal prison.
Apart from jail time (which will be followed by three years probation), U.S. District Judge Fernando J. Gaitan also fined Henderson $24,738.
Henderson was caught on July 18, 2008 (opening day for the Warner Bros. blockbuster) using his digital camera illegally and pleaded guilty to criminal copyright infringement.
Of course the MPAA was more than happy with the news as its main occupation is setting examples among copyright infringers:
“This is an appropriate sentence for a very serious crime, and we hope it will serve as a warning to would-be movie thieves that they will face severe consequences for engaging in these activities,” said Mike Robinson, the MPAA's senior vice president of content protection.
.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/23/illegal-recording-of-the-dark-knight-costs-man-two-years-in-prison/ Post LinkLetter Sent to MPs Asks for Urgent Anti-Piracy Measures
Posted on: February 23, 2010
Simon Cowell making a getsure he is likely to receive himself
The Digital Economy Bill published last November by the British Government and currently passing through the House of Lords has received torrents of criticism for its plans of disconnecting repeat infringers but now big names in music, film and publishing industries are pushing for its passing.
Simon Cowell has become involved in the anti-piracy issue with probably “his first piece of UK political lobbying” as Telegraph reports.
The English music executive joined other important names in the creative industries who converted their concerns with the increasing phenomenon of file sharing into signatures on a letter that urges MPs to hurry with the passing of the Digital Economy Bill.
Among those who signed the letter is English novelist Sir Terry Pratchett (representing the interests of authors), who is confident that the Digital Economy Bill, “will ensure that British creators, entertainment companies and the 1.8 million people who work in and around the cultural sector are respected and rewarded in the future as they have been in the past, and that they are fairly paid when they put their work online.”
From the letter: “Digital entertainment services are really beginning to take off: fans have never had so much choice as to how to enjoy their music, books, TV and films online. But for these new business models to develop, it is critical that more is done to prevent the illegal services providing easy access to free content.”
The Bill’s anti-piracy measures are far from addressing the technical issues implied by a correct identification of an account owner who is indisputably guilty of copyright infringement as pointed out by Deborah Prince, the head of Legal Affairs at Which? and several ISPs with TalkTalk being the most notable with its “Don’t Disconnect Us” campaign.
We’ll keep you posted with upcoming events in the story as always.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/23/letter-sent-to-mps-asks-for-urgent-anti-piracy-measures/ Post LinkisoHunt to Appeal in MPAA Lawsuit, Sees The Lite
Posted on: February 23, 2010
Early 2006, the MPAA issued a complaint against isoHunt and its sister site Torrentbox, claiming that owner Gary Fung operated file-sharing services and profited from copyright infringement.
The lengthy legal procedure that followed came to a temporary end December last year, when a US Federal Court in California ruled that isoHunt was indeed guilty of violating US copyright law. Since the circumstances of the case were so similar to earlier ones involving Napster and Grokster, the judge decided there was no need to have a full trial and instead granted a summary judgment against isoHunt.
That was not the end of the case though. Last month at the status conference the judge opened the door for an interlocutory appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. “Before we appeal however, we must undergo injunction motions and that's what we are doing now,” Gary Fung told TorrentFreak.
The MPAA has already filed its injunction and suggested that isoHunt should filter its search results based on generic keywords that may be used to describe copyrighted titles. In a response isoHunt has filed an injunction stating that such a feature is a bad idea for several reasons.
“The Plaintiffs' [MPAA studios] proposed injunction and its keyword type filter, in our view, raises serious issues on the balance between freedom of speech, fair use and copyright protectionism. Such a keyword filter is also impossible to implement if it's to have any sort of precision, nor can it avoid conflict with free use cases, free commerce, or extra-territorial law,” Fung said.
“If it were actually to be mandated and put into operation, plaintiffs’ proposed filter would make Swiss cheese out of the dictionary,” isoHunt's lawyer Ira Rothken writes in the injunction, arguing that a keyword filter would also censor a lot of legal content.
“If a new TV show title is based on a popular phrase that is already in the name of an amateur film or Linux program, distribution of the film or program will be blocked,” the lawyer added.
Instead of filtering isoHunt proposes to use a Lite version of isoHunt instead, a version of the site that no longer contains any of the red flags for inducement that were found at Summary Judgment. In other words, the ‘lite' version of the site is no different than search engines such as Google and Yahoo!, except that it's limited to torrent files.
“Should the Court accept a version of isoHunt Lite during the injunction phase, it may become the required interface for our US users,” Gary Fung told TorrentFreak.
It is noted in the injunction that Google and Yahoo! and other search engines can serve as torrent search engines also, and that most of the files that can be found via isoHunt are indexed by these other search engines as well. Gary Fung even conducted a test on a sample of torrent files to prove this point.
“This test shows that 95% of the torrent files indexed on isoHunt are equally available through the main search engines,” isoHunt's lawyer writes to the court.
With the Lite version of isoHunt Gary Fung hopes to prevent the site's closure in the US. If the Court somehow rules that it's still violating copyright law, one has to wonder what implications this has for Google, Yahoo! and other search engines.
The case continues.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/jG6U3wxwlc8/ Post LinkUK Says ‘No’ To Disconnecting File-Sharers, Sort Of
Posted on: February 23, 2010In November 2009, details finally became public concerning the UK Digital Economy Bill, which aimed to turn elements of Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report into law.
Part of the proposals indicated that Internet users would face being monitored by the music and movie industries. Their ISPs would then be required to pass on copyright infringement notices based on evidence supplied by anti-piracy tracking companies.
If file-sharing wasn't reduced by 70% in 2 years using these ‘educational' measures, alleged persistent infringers faced the ultimate sanction of being disconnected from the Internet.
The proposals were met with massive opposition, with ISP TalkTalk going as far as threatening legal action over what it says amounts to a breach of human rights.
Adding to the pressure, a petition against the proposals was launched on the Number 10 website demanding;
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to abandon Lord Mandelson’s plans to ban individuals from the internet based on their use of ‘peer to peer’ file sharing.”
The Government has now responded, and for TalkTalk and the countless others who share their views, on the surface it seems like good news, but a closer look reveals a somewhat disappointing result.
In its response the Government says that it wants as many citizens as possible to enjoy the benefits of the Internet and recognizes that technology has changed the way people access media content, in some cases “faster than products and services commercially on offer have developed” – an apparent reference to the superior accessibility of unauthorized downloads.
The Government goes on to say that they take the interests of artists and creators very seriously and have been working hard to find solutions to online copyright infringement. Nevertheless, they will not require ISPs to monitor their users to detect infringements and downloaders will be pretty safe, as is the case now, with detection being focused on those who upload material without permission.
On potential disconnections for persistent file-sharers – the key issue for many – the Government goes on to say:
“We will not terminate the accounts of infringers – it is very hard to see how this could be deemed proportionate except in the most extreme – and therefore probably criminal – cases.”
What categorizes an infringement as ‘criminal' is open to interpretation, but is likely to mean very large-scale infringement, infringement for profit, or both. So good news then? Well, not quite.
Despite throwing out absolute permanent disconnections as a measure against file-sharers, the Government is still considering other ‘technical' solutions if the ISP warnings aren't effective including “band width restriction, a daily downloading limit or, as a last resort, temporary account suspension.”
So we're back to disconnections again. In terms of time, ‘temporary' is not defined. Of course, anything less than ‘permanent' fits the wording. A day? A month? A year?
Another part of the response which has been mentioned several times before and still remains puzzling is this section:
“In the cases of the most serious infringers, if a rights holder obtains a court order, the ISP would have to provide information so that the rights holder can take targeted court action.”
As anyone who has followed the activities of Davenport Lyons and ACS:Law will tell you, the personal details of anyone alleged to have shared a single file can easily be obtained by rightsholders.
Sadly, despite the headline-grabbing statements, it seems that little has changed with this response from the Government.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/3IEodKFXNV8/ Post LinkIs the EU IMCO Committee Confused on ACTA?
Posted on: February 23, 2010With ACTA grabbing headlines around the world, it is interesting to note that counterfeiting and piracy was discussed today in the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) of Europe.
A parliamentary document shows (PDF) that the issue of piracy, counterfeiting and ACTA was brought up in the IMCO today. The comments made were interesting to say the least. Here's one section of the document:
The growing value of IPR is an indicator of success. However, it also makes them attractive to counterfeiters and pirates, who are often well financed and have become organised, highly skilled entrepreneurs operating on an industrial scale. These infringers make full use of advances in technology and trade, adopting modern business models to control the production, distribution and sale of illicit goods across borders and continents. The internet is one such tool that is being used to drive a worldwide market in infringing products, which is stifling innovation and threatening jobs.
In Europe, counterfeiting and piracy have a dramatic and damaging effect on business and they have the potential to become even more problematical due to the recent economic downturn and the growing range of fake products being sold. While luxury goods, fashion, music and film products have traditionally been targeted, today counterfeiting and piracy affect a wider variety of mass consumption goods such as foodstuffs, cosmetics, hygiene products, spare parts for cars, toys and various types of technical or electrical equipment.
This has resulted in risks to the health and safety of European citizens. In particular, the increase in fake medicines is of growing concern.
Now, it sounds like internet related issues are being rolled in to physical piracy which are most often like the differences between night and day. Shortly after, the issue of ACTA was brought up:
At global level the Commission has developed a long-term strategy for the enforcement of IPR in third countries. In the framework of this strategy, a list of “priority countries” has been put together and this is regularly updated. Other major initiatives concern negotiations on an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and an EU-China Action Plan to increase customs cooperation on protecting IPR. In addition to this, the Commission has launched its China IPR SME Helpdesk. This provides SMEs with the business tools they need to develop their IP rights and manage related risks.
So what does the commission think about when it comes to cases revolving around the internet?
Counterfeiting and piracy severely damage trust and confidence in the trade of goods and services, in particular on the internet or across borders. For business this can result in the loss of opportunities. For consumers, counterfeiting could cause a reluctance to make the best use of new distribution channels, or to take advantage of bargains throughout the Internal Market.
[...]
As a first example, the Commission has launched a stakeholders' dialogue on the sale of counterfeit goods over the internet. While the internet is not in itself the source of counterfeiting, it has nevertheless become an important vehicle for the sale of fake goods world-wide. Its global reach and accessibility, the possibility for traders to remain anonymous and for offers to be placed and withdrawn instantly has made it one of the most attractive tools for the sale of counterfeit goods.
Brand owners and internet companies alike have recognised this and have committed themselves to developing a collaborative way forward. Consequently, the Commission has organised a structured dialogue between stakeholders to facilitate mutual understanding and to find solutions that will be in the interests of all concerned. A series of meetings have already taken place to address specific issues relating to the sale of counterfeit goods over the internet. Further meetings have been scheduled before the end of the year, which could lead to a Memorandum of Understanding, dealing with issues such as prevention, identification and removal of infringing offers (e.g. Notice and Take-Down procedures) and sellers from internet platforms. However, if voluntary arrangements cannot be agreed, the Commission will need to consider legislative solutions, in particular in the context of the IPR Enforcement Directive.
What is striking in all of this is how the comments are trying very hard to focus on physical piracy, bootlegging and counterfeiting, yet issues like ACTA and notice-and-takedown procedures keep getting inserted as if such issues were restricted solely to the sale of counterfeit goods and bootlegging. Anyone with any knowledge on file-sharing would very likely know the difference between downloading a movie for free and taking a movie, burning and stomping thousands of copies and selling it on the streets or on eBay. It's a big thick line and few respectable file-sharers cross it.
It's unfortunate that when one reads this, it doesn't exactly instill confidence for those who know a thing or two about ACTA. What is known in ACTA thanks to leaked information is that policies like a three strikes law are in there. That means if you are accused of copyright infringement three times whether commercially or non-commercially, you would have your connection terminated. This is just one of the many more hairy provisions in the treaty.
What something like this does highlight very clearly was that it was a very big mistake roll non-commercial infringement in to commercial bootlegging and counterfeiting. Had ACTA actually lived up to its name and dealt with matters strictly related to actual counterfeiting and not non-commercial infringement, the outcry would be minimal and, who knows, ACTA might have been finalized by now. The only thing that is related to the internet that would have been reasonable in ACTA would be that any website that sells infringing material would be targeted. Again, strictly commercial related enforcement.
Unfortunately, what we have is those in power confused on the topic and perhaps inadvertently rolling commercial piracy with non-commercial infringement as one and the same when it is perfectly clear that there's a huge difference. There's really nothing in this document that convinces me that the committee understands the difference while discussing the issue of piracy.
Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.
Despite Court Loss, Aussie Copyright Group Demands ISP Pay
Posted on: February 23, 2010Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) intends to argue in Federal Court that it shouldn't be forced to pay the costs of those portions of the trial which iiNet lost or impeded.
The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), still stinging from a dazzling loss in an Australian Federal Court after suing ISP iiNet for failing to stop copyright infringement of its customers, has now decided to try and recover those costs of the trial on issues which iiNet lost or admitted delaying the court's findings.
“AFACT put in application for costs to be re-heard and it asks for costs to be adjusted for the parts of the matter that iiNet lost,” said a spokeswoman.
The real kicker, much to the delight of all, is that not only did AFACT lose its case against the ISP, but is also on the hook for iiNet's legal costs as well.
iiNet managing director Michael Malone says that AFACT shouldn't be able to get out of paying its legal expenses and called the trial a “pointless exercise” in which the money wasted by both sides – $10-$15 million – on the trial could've been better used to create a legal online content service instead.
“The disappointing thing for us is we feel like we’ve wasted a year when we should have spent the time and money [on developing a content distribution model],” he said. “If we spent $6 million on this, how much have the studios spent? You would have to imagine given 34 studios were involved, their legal cost would have far exceeded ours.”
As for AFACT's expected appeal, a hearing on which ic scheduled for February 23rd, Malone doesn't see how it expects to prevail being that the presiding judge, Justice Cowdroy, was so “equivocal in his conclusions.”
“There wasn't a lot of gray in there,” he added.
AFACT responded to the original verdict by citing the “intent” of the Australian govt rather than the facts at hand so it's unlikely an appeal will much matter.
“We are confident that the Government does not intend a policy outcome where rampant copyright infringement is allowed to continue unaddressed and unabated via the iiNet network,” it said shortly after the verdict.
The case is expected to go all the way the country's High Court, meaning many more millions will be wasted that could have otherwise been used to provide the sort of legal alternatives to P2P that file-sharers want.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
FTC Warns 100 Companies About P2P Data Leaks
Posted on: February 23, 2010RIAA and MPAA quick to “welcome” news of another story chronicling the “abuse of P2P technology,” and emphasizes the “serious threat” it poses to both consumers as well as copyright holders.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sent letters to almost 100 unnamed companies warning them that personal information, including sensitive data about customers and/or employees, is available in on P2P networks.
The govt agency has also opened “non-public investigations” of other companies whose customer or employee information has also been exposed on P2P networks.
“Unfortunately, companies and institutions of all sizes are vulnerable to serious P2P-related breaches, placing consumers’ sensitive information at risk. For example, we found health-related information, financial records, and drivers’ license and social security numbers–the kind of information that could lead to identity theft,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz in a statement. “Companies should take a hard look at their systems to ensure that there are no unauthorized P2P file-sharing programs and that authorized programs are properly configured and secure. Just as important, companies that distribute P2P programs, for their part, should ensure that their software design does not contribute to inadvertent file sharing.”
The efforts are part of the FTC's overall mandate that it enforce laws requiring companies to take reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect sensitive personal information, and that their failure to prevent such data from being shared on P2P networks may be in violation of such laws.
An excerpt from the warning letter reads:
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is sending you this letter because at least one computer file containing sensitive personal information from or about your customers and/or employees has been shared from your computer network, or the network of one of your service providers, to a peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) network. One such file is ******. The information is now available to users of the P2P network, who could use it to commit identity theft or fraud. Your failure to prevent such information from being shared to a P2P network may violate laws enforced by the Commission.
The RIAA and MPAA were quick to “welcome” the news of another story warning of the dangers of P2P technology and the threat it poses to consumers.
“It's an all-too common refrain: a story of another security breach caused by the abuse of p2p technology,” reads the RIAA's statement. “Countless private citizens, corporations and government systems have been put at risk by entities that design a p2p product knowing that intense exchanging of files on open software programs brings unacceptable risk to others.”
It then tries to entwine the misfortunes of copyright holders with those consumers and businesses whom have been affected by “P2P abuse.”
“What else are we waiting for? Given the significant job losses endured by the creative community and profound evidence that no business or community is immune from the damaging effects of p2p abuse, what will it take to spur meaningful and long-overdue action against those who profit from nefarious use of p2p?”
You have to love it. Leave it to the RIAA to try and take advantage of a sensitive situation and twist it to serve its owen ends. Can't we agree the real problem are the individual users who don't know how to properly configure a P2P program and shouldn't be using one at work in the first place?
The MPAA, god bless it, does the same thing in its response.
“For the millions of men and women working in film, television, music, software and other creative industries, P2P networks have become a serious threat to their livelihoods by serving as a major platform for illegal trafficking in stolen copyrighted material,” said Daniel Mandil, General Counsel & Chief Content Protection Officer for the MPAA. “Today the FTC is also sending out a strong warning that using P2P networks increases the risk that sensitive personal information will fall into the hands of identity thieves. The dangers are real both for business and home users of P2P networks, and we welcome the FTC’s efforts to spread the word about the risks.”
I'm not sure the movie industry has any “threats” being it just had the best year of its life. With ticket sales up 9% to a record breaking total of $10.5 billion the only thing it has to fear is fear itself.
The FTC notices went to both public and private groups, including schools and local governments, and ranged in size from businesses with as few as eight employees to publicly held corporations employing tens of thousands. The letters urged them to review their security practices and, if appropriate, the practices of contractors and vendors, to ensure that they are reasonable, appropriate, and in compliance with the law.
ACTA Would Disconnect File-Sharers After All
Posted on: February 23, 2010Another leak of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has surfaced. This time, it's a big one – the long awaited internet chapter where provisions like the three strikes law has been considered.
ACTA has had quite a reputation over the years and all the way up until recently, it has been known as the scariest agreement ever thought of to date that revolves around copyright and the internet that appears simply unstoppable. One of the most controversial provisions within ACTA is the concept of disconnecting file-sharers on the mere basis of accusations – most commonly referred to as a three strikes law.
Fearing that three strikes would damage public relations, the USTR said that there's a lot of “misconceptions” about ACTA and said that ACTA does not focus exclusively on the internet and is more about physical piracy and counterfeiting on a commercial scale.
While the USTR said that something like a three strikes law was merely a misconception, their credibility was completely dashed on the topic recently now that the internet chapter has leaked.
The provision that would allow for the disconnection of file-sharers is the following:
“3. Each Party recognize that some persons use the services of third parties, including online
service providers, for engaging in copyright or related rights infringement. Each Party also
recognizes that legal uncertainty with respect to application of intellectual property rights,
limitations, exceptions, and defenses in the digital environment may present barriers to the
economic growth of, and opportunities in, electronic commerce. Accordingly, in order to
facilitate the continued development of an industry engaged in providing information
services online while also ensuring that measures take adequate and effective action against
copyright or related rights infringement are available and reasonable, each Party shall:
[...]
(b) condition the applicantion of the provisions of subparagraph (a) on meeting
the following requirements:
(I) an online service provider adopting and reasonably implementing a policy ^6 to address the unauthorized storage or transmission of materials protected by copyright or related rights
^6 An example of such a policy is providing for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscriptions and accounts in the service provider's system or network of repeat infringers.”
So there it is pretty much in plain English, the three strikes law or similar measure in black and white ink.
Michael Geists in-depth analysis.
Already, representatives in the European Union have expressed concern over such provisions saying, “Such practices are highly invasive in the individuals' private sphere. They entail the generalised monitoring of Internet users’ activities, including perfectly lawful ones. They affect millions of law-abiding Internet users, including many children and adolescents. They are carried out by private parties, not by law enforcement authorities.”
The document also notes, “Although the EDPS acknowledges the importance of enforcing intellectual property rights, he takes the view that a three strikes Internet disconnection policy as currently known – involving certain elements of general application – constitutes a disproportionate measure and can therefore not be considered as a necessary measure.”
What will no doubt be interesting in the future is whenever ACTA gets finalized is whether the European Union adopts such an agreement in to law in spite of wide-spread concerns on many levels.
In any event, although there have been denials about three strikes being in ACTA, the text of ACTA currently begs to differ.
Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.
New Zealand Introduces File-Sharing Amendment Bill
Posted on: February 23, 2010In 2008, the New Zealand Government proposed new legislation to deal with illicit file-sharing. Section92A was the subject of widespread protests which eventually caused the Government to scrap their plans and go back to the the drawing board in order to remove the “guilty upon accusation” elements.
Today, Commerce Minister Simon Power will introduce The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill which will repeal Section 92A and replace it with a modified regime intended to reduce illegal file sharing.
“The major feature is the three-notice process, which educates the public about illegal file sharing and provides effective methods for copyright owners to enforce their copyright,” says Power. “It ensures that file sharers are given adequate warnings that unauthorised sharing of copyright works is illegal.”
Despite the more-gently named “three notice” regime (versus the more commonly used “3 strikes” term) the effects are the same. The bill will enable copyright owners to claim damages and make requests for the Internet subscriptions of infringers to be suspended.
That said, the element most criticized in Section92A was the lack of a right to reply to an accusation, and that appears to have been addressed. The Bill will extend the jurisdiction of the country's Copyright Tribunal, which will hear both sides of the argument and will be empowered to rule on cases of alleged infringement.
“It's important that account holders are given a reasonable time to stop infringing before enforcement takes place. The bill prescribes timeframes so account holders have the opportunity to address illegal file sharing activity occurring on their internet connection before enforcement action is taken,” says Mr Power for the Government, adding, “They will also have the chance to challenge notices and may request hearings at the Copyright Tribunal to contest infringement claims.
Yesterday it was revealed that Peter Dengate-Thrush, a lawyer specializing in Internet and IP law, has been appointed to the three-person Copyright Tribunal.
Dengate-Thrush, who was legal advisor to InternetNZ for 3 years and is the chairman of Internet policy-making body ICANN, will serve on the Tribunal for five years.
“I straddle both camps, in that I have got a history of involvement in developing internet institutions, practices and rules and also my daily practice is as an intellectual property barrister,” he said in a recent interview.
“I make my living out of advising trademark owners and copyright owners and fully appreciate the consequences of infringements. These are bad things for the economy, communities, inventors and creators of good ideas.”
The Tribunal will be able to fine persistent infringers up to $15,000 ($10,539 USD) with the exact amount linked to damages alleged to have been suffered by the copyright owners. It will also be able to order the suspension of Internet accounts for six months.
“[There] will come a time when disconnecting them [repeat infringers] for a period is the right thing,” added Dengate-Thrush.
While welcoming most of the amendments, InternetNZ, the group which oversees the Internet in New Zealand, says the account suspension clause needs to go.
“The only major flaw remaining in the legislation is that its provision for the suspension of people's Internet accounts. Internet users would simply start a new account at another ISP,” says Policy Director Jordan Carter.
“While suspension would require an order of the District Court, it is still unworkable and unnecessary. InternetNZ will argue strongly that suspension be deleted by the Select Committee.”
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/iP2lX7qFseY/ Post LinkMissouri Man Gets 2yr Prison Term for “Dark Knight” Cam
Posted on: February 22, 2010Drew MPAA investigator sting suspicions for wearing heavy winter coat in July, was confronted after movie whereby then camera was seized and police notified.
Robert L. Henderson, 42yo, of Grandview, Mo. plead guilty last October to criminal copyright infringement for using a video camera to record “The Dark Knight” during its opening weekend as well as selling bootleg DVDs has been sentenced to 2yrs in prison and must pay $24,738 dollars in restitution to the MPAA.
The $24,738 is for the the 1,240 counterfeit DVDs seized from Henderson that it presumes would have otherwise been sold and deprived the MPAA of their profits.
“The theft of films by camcording is a serious threat to the health of the motion picture industry and the 2.4 million Americans it employs,” said Mike Robinson, Sr. Vice President Content Protection, Chief of Operations for the MPAA. “This is an appropriate sentence for a very serious crime, and we hope it will serve as a warning to would-be movie thieves that they will face severe consequences for engaging in these activities.”
Henderson was caught in an MPAA sting after it dispatched investigators to the East Glenn Movie Theater in Lee’s Summit, Mo, the location for previous bootleg Cams. They felt the opening weekend of “Dark Knight” would be prime bait for the bootlegger, and apparently correctly so. Henderson immediately drew the investigators suspicions after entering the movie theater wearing a winter coat in July.
They later confronted Henderson, seized his video camera and called the police. Henderson’s camera also contained a recording of “Hell Boy 2” and a partial recording of “The Chronicles of Narnia – Prince Caspian.” It was during a search of his home afterwards by police that they found the bootleg DVDs numbering 1,240.
“We are grateful to everyone involved in the apprehension and prosecution of this defendant,” add Robinson, whom also praised the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 which made camcording in a theater a federal felony.
The sad thing is that despite all the MPAA's concern “Dark Knight” still had the biggest box office opening weekend of all time ($158 million) and went on to enjoy #3 all time box office ticket sales and #5 worldwide. This despite being the most pirated movie of all time.
Henderson's sentencing comes just two months after the arrest and indictment of Gilberto Sanchez, a 42yo man from the Bronx, accused of uploading an unfinished workprint copy of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine to web data hosting site Megaupload last spring.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
IIPA Demands Canada Be Put on 301 Priority Watch List
Posted on: February 22, 2010The IIPA (International Intellectual Property Alliance) is demanding that Canada be put on the Special 301 priority watchlist. Of course, as with how Canada ended up on the priority watchlist last year, the reasons given fall short of being credible enough to warrant being compared to places like China.
It may be a big thorn in the side of major corporations who deal with copyright related matters. Canada, a country some have referred to as a push-over country with regards to international pressure (Softwood lumber dispute anyone?) has remained surprisingly resilient against pressure from foreign corporations to reform copyright laws in ways that would chop Canadian innovation at its knees. Several years later, organizations like the IIPA have remained frustrated finding themselves rolling similar demands they've been making for years in to an ever growing list of new demands on how Canada governs itself.
Last year, Canada was placed on the Special 301 report priority watchlist and criticism about the credibility of the 301 report came hard and heavy both within Canada and abroad. If credibility were to be restored for the watchlist, it would be through, at the very least, public relations and diplomatic damage control.
Now, it has become very clear that the foreign corporate lobby groups have never learned their lesson last year and, this year, are demanding that Canada be placed again on the Special 301 report's priority watchlist. Their demands were pretty much implementing every single provision in ACTA:
Copyright Law Reform
• Enact legislation bringing Canada into full compliance with the WIPO “Internet” Treaties (WIPO Copyright
Treaty [WCT] and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty [WPPT])
• Create strong legal incentives for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to cooperate with copyright owners in
combating online piracy
• Amend the Copyright Act to clarify the scope of the private copying exception for sound recordings
• Amend the Copyright Act to clarify liability for those who operate illicit file-sharing services, or whose actions
are otherwise directed to facilitating, encouraging or contributing to widespread infringement
• Create criminal liability and penalties for counterfeiting offenses commensurate with what is provided in the
Copyright ActEnforcement
• Make legislative, regulatory or administrative changes necessary to empower customs officials to make ex
officio seizures of counterfeit and pirate product at the border without a court order.
• Complete the process of making proceeds of crime legislation applicable to proceeds from the distribution,
sale and importation of pirated goods, and make the other legal and policy changes to enforcement called
for by parliamentary committees.
• Increase resources devoted to anti-piracy enforcement both at the border and within Canada
• Direct the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), and Crown
prosecutors to give high priority to intellectual property rights enforcement, including against retail piracy and
imports of pirated products, and to seek deterrent penalties against those convicted of these crimes.
Reality check
Last year, Michael Geist did note how, when it came to countries with the worst piracy rates, Canada was nowhere to be found. While there were many other reasons to question the reason why Canada was put on the priority watchlist last year, there are even more reasons this year.
The IIPA issued a report on piracy rates in each country. Looking at the rates between each country, guess which ones were the lowest in 2009: Canada at 30%, Israel at 34%, Singapore at 35%. The only country lower then Canada was a special mention of Switzerland at 25%. That's a far cry from Indonesia at 86%, Belarus at 88%, Pakistan at 86% and Vietnam at 85%. Michael Geist notes that the report also reveals that Canada has dropped to record piracy rate lows.
There are claims out there that say how Canada's marketplace for music is severely undermined and cannot even exist without copyright law reforms. That doesn't really explain why the Canadian digital market place grew faster then the United States four years in a row.
What about radio listening habits? We know that the big four record labels are members of the RIAA. We also know that they are the multinational corporations leading the charge when it comes to demands as seen by the IIPA. So are Canadian copyright laws making Canada a hostile environment for the major record labels? Canoe has a list of the most played music on radio and we'll take the chart of February 18, 2010 and use the top ten. We'll then compare it with RIAA radar and see which ones are RIAA members
1. TiK ToK by Ke$ha – Kemosabe/RCA/RMG (Not RIAA)
2. Bad Romance by Lady GaGa – Streamline/KonLive/Cherrytree/Interscope (RIAA Label)
3. Telephone by Lady Gaga Feat. Beyonce – Streamline/KonLive/Cherrytree/Interscope (RIAA Label)
4. Two Is Better Than One by Boys Like Girls Feat. Taylor Swift – Columbia (RIAA Label)
5. Do You Remember by Jay Sean Feat. Sean Paul & Lil Jon – Cash Money/Universal Republic (RIAA Label)
6. Wavin' Flag by K'Naan – A&M/Octone/Interscope (RIAA Label)
7. Empire State Of Mind by Jay-Z + Alicia Keys – Roc Nation (Not RIAA)
8. Sexy Chick by David Guetta Feat. Akon – Astralwerks/Capitol (RIAA Label)
9. Haven't Met You Yet by Michael Buble – 143/Reprise (RIAA Label)
10. In My Head by Jason Derulo – Beluga Heights/Warner Bros. (RIAA Label)
8 out of the top ten singles played on radio are published through RIAA labels. Has that translated in to sales? Let's take a look at the top ten selling albums according to Canoe. These were the top ten list as of February 11, 2010:
1. Soldier of Love by Sade – EPIC (RIAA Label)
2. Need You Now by Lady Antebellum – EMI (RIAA Label)
3. NOW! 15 by (VA) – Universal (RIAA Label)
4. Recollection by K.D. Lang – Nonesuch (RIAA Label)
5. Fame, the by Lady GaGa – Interscope (RIAA Label)
6. Crazy Love by Michael Buble – Reprise (RIAA Label)
7. 2010 Grammy Nominees by (VA) – EMI (RIAA Label)
8. I Dreamed a Dream by Susan Boyle – Sony Music Entertainment (RIAA Label)
9. E.N.D. (Energy Never Dies) by Black Eyed Peas – A&M (RIAA Label)
10. Marjo Et Hommes Vol 2 by Marjo – Sphere musique (Undetermined)
Essentially, 9/10 of the top selling albums are published, for sure, under an RIAA label. So effectively speaking, Canada has been about as hospitable of a market place as one could get to international organizations who turn around and say, “Canada lacks the marketplace integrity required for innovative digital business models to flourish as they do in other countries.” (Taken from the IIPA report arguing that Canada should be placed on a priority watchlist as mentioned above) It's hard to ask for a more promising marketplace than in Canada and arguments that the copyright laws are supposedly outdated is anywhere from a moot point to a completely ridiculous statement as highlighted by copyright expert and Canadian lawyer Howard Knopf.
Others Echo the Sentiment on Copyright Laws in Canada
We are not alone on the scepticism of how Canada is ending up on the priority watch list. Leading technologyyyyyyy firms including member of the BSA Microsoft, issued a comment on Canada's copyright laws and Canada's placement on the Priority watchlist stating, “Canada’s system of dealing with the online use and dissemination of material, including copyrighted material, is more than adequate and effective; it is a thoughtful, and in a number of cases, superior way of resolving disputes.”
They (CCIA) reason with the following:
watch-listing one nation for non-ratification of the WIPO Internet treaties would seem to require watch-listing all non-members of the WIPO Internet treaties. The European Union, for example, only just ratified the Internet treaties late in 2009, and by such logic was presumably as much a haven for pirates as Canada until that time. There is, therefore, no basis for USTR to conclude that any country does not provide adequate and effective protection based on non-ratification of any treaty: “adequate and effective protection” of intellectual property rights, by the plain, defined meaning of those terms, goes to the extent to which there is functional legal protection for particular rights under domestic law, not whether a country has taken action on a treaty.
In conclusion, there is zero reason why Canada should be placed on a watch-list, let alone a priority watch-list. Multinational companies are thriving in Canada's marketplaces, the laws that exist in Canada today are, on a number of levels, more sound than other countries who are favoured by an organization such as the IIPA. The IIPA's demands are, in short, baseless.
Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.
Anti-Piracy Group Loses In Court, Doesn’t Want To Pay Costs
Posted on: February 22, 2010Earlier this month, the Federal Court in Australia ruled in favor of ISP iiNet following a copyright infringement case brought by AFACT, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft.
The studios it represents, Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network took legal action against iiNet, claiming that the ISP did nothing to stop its customers from sharing copyright media via BitTorrent.
As part of the defeat, AFACT was ordered to pay iiNet's legal costs, recently revealed to be a staggering $5.7 million ($5.08 million USD). Despite the ruling, AFACT says it will now return to court to avoid paying some of the costs. The anti-piracy group says that even though the final verdict went against them, elements of the trial went in their favor, so they believe they should not have to pay iiNet for defending those parts.
One area of claim was highlighted by AFACT spokesperson Rebecca Tabakoff, who said that early on in the trial iiNet conceded that its customers did indeed share copyright material, despite earlier claims they did not.
“[iiNet] spent a lot of time in the lead up to the trial not conceding that their customers had infringed copyright. The judge awarded all costs against applicants but iiNet was not successful on all fronts,” she explained.
Tabakoff indicated that AFACT would present other arguments to see if costs could be recouped elsewhere.
iiNet managing director Michael Malone believes that since AFACT lost the case, they should pay the costs.
“We didn't ask to be sued. They came to us and sued us and they lost, so I don't see why we should be paying any of their legal expenses,” Malone told ZDNet.
Malone says that money spent on legal action would be better off spent serving customers better.
“I look at the amount of money we have spent on litigation, and no doubt there would have been a lot more [spent] by the studios. Think of what that could have been spent on if it was applied to online content instead.”
This attempt by AFACT to challenge the instruction to pay iiNet's legal costs will be heard on February 25th, the same day by which it must appeal the original ruling in order to take it to the High Court.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/PSSNjH52e3Q/ Post LinkPiracy Isn’t Killing The Movie Industry, Greed Is
Posted on: February 22, 2010First off, we have to make it clear that the major movie studios are doing great at the box-office, despite movie piracy riding at an all-time high. Other parts of the movie industry, such as video rental outlets, do seem to struggle and they have the studios to thank for this, not piracy.
In January of this year Warner Bros. announced that new DVDs will not be available at online rental outlet Netflix for the first month after they are released in stores. Warner Bros. hoped that this would increase DVD sales. However, the most likely side effect is an increase in piracy and a loss of income to Netflix.
It is a step back in a time where consumers are screaming for on-demand access and the flexibility to choose the option they want for their video consumption. The studios are clearly skeptical of all these ‘new' technologies and are frantically adding restrictions to maximize their revenues, ignoring all market signals.
The greed of the music studios hasn't gone unnoticed by Paul Uniacke, head of the Video Ezy and Blockbuster video rental chains. “Studio greed is what's holding back video-on-demand,” he said in response to the studios demands to pay huge sums of money upfront if they want to offer on-demand streams.
“Movie studios are still as arrogant as the music moguls were before digital downloads and piracy destroyed them. The only thing that's protecting the movie studios (from more widespread illegal downloading) now is file size,” Uniacke added.
Much like the big music labels, the studios are trying to control how people consume media to an extent where it becomes impossible for innovative retailers to offer a product that can compete with piracy. By this process they are killing their own business and that of many retailers, while blaming piracy for the damages.
Consumers demand convenience, availability and a high quality product for a fair price. Still, the decisions of the music labels and movie studios are mostly heading in the opposite direction as they cling to their old business of trying to safeguard their monopolies.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/8JONR_JgwJc/ Post LinkSpybot.AKB Infects P2P Networks
Posted on: February 22, 2010Once installed, worm infects and redirects Firefox and Chrome browsers to different websites after user queries specific search terms.
Spybot.AKB is the latest worm to grace Direct Connect P2P networks, this time passing itself off as a name brand .exe file extension in the “shared” folder.
Once activated it installs an extension in the Firefox and Chrome browsers in order to control?the searches?made by users, and then redirects them to malicious websites from which more malware can?be downloaded.
It affects the “shared” folders of the following P2P programs:
- eMule
- LimeWire
- Morpheus
- Tesla
- Winmx
- eDonkey
- Bearshare
- Grokster
- Icq
- KaZaA
Unsurprisingly the worm only affects Windows platforms, specifically 2003, XP, 2000, NT, ME, 98, and 95, so Vista and Win 7 users are immune.
For more info check out the Panda security website.
As usual I recommend switching to BitTorrent or Usenet from Direct Connect-style P2P networks. Between copyright infringement investigations and malware headaches it's just not a safe place to be anymore.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
KickassTorrents – New Features Added!
Posted on: February 21, 2010
Today’s second P2PON post links back to the same file sharing website – Kickasstorents – just a few week from its previous updates about which we reported in another post, the sites comes with new improvements. Read them below:
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/21/kickasstorrents-new-features-added/ Post LinkWe already announced some of these features in our community, but for the blog we united the last two updates into one. So this week we have!
- Kickass Fake Finder is now available! It is still a young and fresh beta, but shortly we will add a rule creator and more;
- A “Check Me” button was added for uploaders who want to become verified uploaders;
- Finally we added user reputation;
- We did a small redesign of user page;
- We added a torrent comment filter. From now on you can post the spam websites URLs or spam phrases in our community and we will add it to filter;
- Plugins for uTorrent and iGoogle;
- And numerous minor fixes.
Kickasstorrents’ Top 5 Most Popular Music Albums
Posted on: February 21, 2010
We’re back this week with the music chart posted by the guys at Kickasstorrents, a site we like a lot. The Music Top 5 presented here applies for this site alone and represents just a random selection from the most popular album downloads picked by the site’s crew:
This week’s Kickasstorrents’ Music Top 5 really kicks some heavy ass. Finally something to do an old school head banging session on but also to get ecstatically numb – two discographies that shouldn’t not be missing from the collection of any rock listener (or music listener altogether, if you ask me) – Metallica and Pink Floyd. The chart also includes the latest release from another rock group 30 Seconds to Mars and some chilling music from Massive Attack.
Watch them (and download them) below. Enjoy!
1. Metallica – Discography;
2. 30 Seconds to Mars – This is War;
3. Pink Floyd – Discography;
4. Massive Attack – Heligoland;
5. Snow Patrol – Now;
ScenePalace – Scene Torrent Tracker Open For Signup Once Again
Posted on: February 21, 2010Out of the many new General/0Day trackers that pop up every day, only a few sites manage to make a lasting impression. ScP is one of those few general trackers that has shown a good potential for future growth – within just two and a half months since launch, the site has attracted a significant user base, added many torrents and maintained the very fast pre times that made the site popular during it’s first few days of being online. ScenePalace is a scene only torrent tracker that indexes...
Web-Sheriff Mistakenly Targets Legal Torrent Site
Posted on: February 21, 2010The Web-Sheriff, aka John Giacobbi, has been chasing after many torrent site owners for years. With his polite style and distinguished font use, he sets himself apart from other anti-piracy crusaders tasked with sending out DMCA takedown requests on behalf of copyright holders.
The Sheriff's resume includes big shot artists such as Prince and the late Michael Jackson, and in his high times Giacobbi went as far as taking a stab at The Pirate Bay founders, who have mocked his actions extensively in the past.
Although he might not be particularly well-liked by many operators of torrent sites, he and his team have earned respect over the years by staying polite where other representatives of copyright holders tend to display arrogance, frustration and hostility.
This week, however, the Web-Sheriff slipped up and dented his badge. Acting on behalf of Magnolia Pictures, a batch of take down requests was sent out to various sites, trying to take down torrents of the movie Warlords which will be released by the movie studio in a few weeks time.
In order to track down all infringing copies of the film, the Sheriff probably searched through a few dozen torrent sites to send DMCA notices for all infringing torrents. For some reason the ‘legal' torrent site Legit Torrents was also included in the batch, wrongfully, because the “Warlords” torrent hosted there is one of a free MMORPG Kungfu game.
Web-Sheriff Trademarked Letterhead
En3r0, the owner of Legit Torrents told TorrentFreak that he pointed out the mistake to the Web-Sheriff, but thus far hasn't heard anything back. The notice was obviously sent out in error and the description of the files as well as the site's url should have made some alarm bells go off.
This is the first time that legittorrents has received a DMCA notice, En3r0 said, and hopefully the last. The Web-Sheriff, who signs the notices with “the information in the notification is accurate” might have to reconsider putting that in, as he's clearly off his A-game.
Perhaps it's time for a new Sheriff in town?
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/CC8puYGTZic/ Post LinkDark Knight Cammer Gets 2 Years in Prison
Posted on: February 21, 2010
In 2008, the latest Batman movie ‘The Dark Knight' became a massive hit, setting a one-day box office record of $66.4 million on its opening day and taking $996,500,000 by the end of the year.
Of course, Warner worked hard to hinder piracy, even handing out night-vision goggles in Australia to thwart cammers. Over in the United States, however, much lower-tech means were used to identify an individual attempting to record the movie.
The movie industry already had their eye on the East Glenn Movie Theater in Lee’s Summit since they believed an illicit copy of the Will Smith movie ‘Hancock' had previously been recorded there. After noticing a man wearing a long winter coat in the summer, on July 18 on-site MPAA investigators grew suspicious that he was up to no good.
They confronted 42 year-old Robert L. Henderson, seized his video camera and called the police who arrived shortly later and arrested him.
Henderson's camera was found to contain footage of The Dark Knight, Hell Boy 2 and The Chronicles of Narnia – Prince Caspian. While conducting a search of his home, police found several computers and 1,240 counterfeit DVDs.
On October 7th 2009, Henderson pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Fernando J. Gaitan to criminal copyright infringement under the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act 2005 – the same legislation that sent the EliteTorrents admins and uploaders to prison.
Last week, Judge Gaitan ordered Henderson to serve 24 months in federal prison along with 3 years probation for recording the movie. In addition he must pay $24,738 in fines – $19.95 for each of the pirate movies seized from his home.
“The theft of films by camcording is a serious threat to the health of the motion picture industry and the 2.4 million Americans it employs,” said Mike Robinson, Sr. Vice President of Content Protection at the MPAA. “This is an appropriate sentence for a very serious crime, and we hope it will serve as a warning to would-be movie thieves that they will face severe consequences for engaging in these activities.”
Despite all the efforts, The Dark Knight still leaked online in cam and other formats and went on to become the most-pirated movie of 2008 with 7,030,000 downloads on BitTorrent alone.
The US is extremely tough on ‘cammers' these days, an attitude which isn't shared by the Australians. Recently an 88 year-old man who tried to record Avatar wasn't arrested, but allowed to carry on watching the movie.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/d9iGXP0_Rug/ Post LinkSceneTorrents.Biz Is Not ScT Reborn
Posted on: February 21, 2010If you’ve been watching open signup threads on various BitTorrent forums, you may have stumbled across a new site, www.scenetorrents.biz. Not only does this tracker have the same name, favicon, logo, category icons as the legendary ScT (now defunct) but its staff even claims it to be a resurrection of SceneTorrents known as ScT v2.0. As much as old ScT members would like to hail the return of their beloved torrent site, these claims simply aren't true. SceneTorrents.biz is not ScT reborn – it’s...
ShadyURL – The Opposite Of URL Shorteners
Posted on: February 20, 2010A couple of years back, there weren’t too many URL shorteners around. There was tinyURL and a few others. Situation today is different – there are hundreds of these services around, all focused on making long URLs shorter and easily readable. But have you heard about a URL ‘lengthener’? ShadyURL is one such service that does it. ShadyURL sure as hell wouldn’t shorten your URL. Instead, it’ll disguise your link as something malicious no one in their right mind would click. You heard correct,...
Manic Street Preachers vs. Radiohead in File Sharing Fight
Posted on: February 20, 2010The file sharing issue has fired up many conflicts between artists. In September we published a series of articles dealing with the debate placing British singer Lilly Ann (who spoke against file sharing) and fellow artists on opposite positions. Now another wrangle sparked due to the same topic.
Manic Street Preachers' Nicky Wire
During a show last night in Glasgow, Manic Street Preachers bassist, Nicky Wire, attacked verbally Radiohead's guitarist Ed O'Brien calling him a "cunt", NME.com reports.
When Radiohead made their album ‘In Rainbows’ available for free on p2p networks and let the public decide what money it was worth, Wire condemned the move saying it "demeaned music" and suggested the band were hypocrites as their relaxed attitude towards file sharing was only sustained by the millions of pounds they had already made from music. Ed O'Brien allegedly responded.
“Apparently Ed O'Brien called me a wanker, I'm really fucking scared, go back to your boarding school you cunt!” said Wire.
Oh, dear, sharing doesn’t always bring the best in men!
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/19/manic-street-preachers-vs-radiohead-in-file-sharing-fight/ Post LinkHow To Quickly Investigate A Fake BitTorrent Tracker
Posted on: February 20, 2010Back in 2007 we published a series of articles on various dodgy practices targeted at BitTorrent users. Many people were downloading torrents only to be told that they needed to install software like DomPlayer and 3WPlayer to get them to work. Of course, the torrents were fake.
We also reported on BitTorrent clients such as Torrent101, BitRoll and GetTorrent, which also caused caused a whole load of trouble for those who installed them – even uTorrent and WinZip users were in the sights of malware offloaders.
In an email yesterday to TorrentFreak, a reader pointed us to a problem torrent located here (removed). The file is clearly labeled as ‘The Wolfman DVDrip 2010 aXXo' but it is a fake, a fact which can be quickly learned by reading the comments underneath the torrent. Nevertheless, we thought it might be interesting to demonstrate how it's possible to look a little deeper.
The file is tracked by a whole range of trackers but one sticks out immediately.
http://tracker.torrentq.com/announce.php currently lists 48,416 seeds and 37,496 seeders for the supposed ‘The Wolfman' movie, a highly attractive proposition for those inexperienced in dealing with fake torrents.
Of course the stats are faked, and are run from a tracker set up especially to deliver fake torrents. Indeed, it's run on a subdomain of TorrentQ, a bad client we featured in an earlier article. Here's a quick step-by-step of the method we used to investigate the tracker. There are other ways, but this is pretty simple so anyone can try this out.
It's possible to find information about the files indexed on many trackers by using 'scrape'. In the case of the TorrentQ tracker, the scrape URL is located at http://tracker.torrentq.com/scrape.php. So first off, go to this URL and you'll get the option to download a file, in this case 'scrape.php' – download it.
In this file will be information about the files being seeded on this tracker.
Next use DeHackEd's nice little online tool called DumpTorrentCGI. Browse to the 'scrape' file on your hard drive, change output type to ‘/scrape' and click the ‘decode' button. You should get this report;
Immediately you can see that all the files are apparently hugely popular, but of course, all of these stats are faked. To prove that, one can use a site like Torrentz.com, which creates its torrent URLs by using a torrent's hash value. Simply test each torrent by using http://www.torrentz.com/ followed by the hash value, as shown below, and check the comments.
http://www.torrentz.com/0366eb6bdbab88f2ccd9397a0b421b3947c82e06
The torrents TorrentQ tracks are for Wolfman, Legion, My Name is Khan, The Book of Eli, From Paris With Love, Ninja Assassin, Edge of Darkness, Shutter Island and Dear John.
Every single one is flagged as a fake by commenters on Torrentz.com.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/v-pGNmVMkGA/ Post LinkAussie to Pay Nintendo $1.3M for Uploading Super Mario Bros.
Posted on: February 19, 2010James Burt settles out of court with Nintendo for having uploaded a pre-release copy of it's game New Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii.
Nintendo has recently confirmed the $1.5 million ($1.3 million USD) settlement in an Australian Federal Court of its lawsuit against 24yo James Burt for having illegally uploaded a pre-release copy of its New Super Mario Bros for the Wii to the Internet.
Burt made the game available for illegal download worldwide on November 6th, 2009, nearly a week prior to its official Australian release date.
“This legal proceeding was commenced to protect the creative rights and innovation of game developers, and to combat the growing international problem of Internet piracy,” says Nintendo in a press release. “Under Australian law, copying and distributing games without the permission of the copyright holder is a breach of the Copyright Act.”
It says the $1.5 million dollars is a way of compensating it for the loss of sales revenue he caused, but surely most of those whom did download it illegally were probably not likely to have otherwise purchased the game.
On November 23, a little over 2 weeks after Burt had uploaded the game, Nintendo had developed enough evidence to obtain a Federal Court search order for Burt's residence in the Brisbane suburb of Sinnamon Park. There they found additional evidence to use against him in the case.
“Nintendo guards its intellectual property rights in order to protect the interests of its valued consumers, its own interests, as well as the interests of game development companies,” it adds. “Nintendo will pursue those who attempt to jeopardize our industry by using all means available to it under the law.”
For Burt I'm sure $1.5 million might as well have been $1.5 billion or trillion, and for Nintendo piracy will continue just as it always, so it makes the whole affair seem just as pointless as ever. But, I guess the reality of the situation is of little consequence.
The game of whac-a-mole continues.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
10 Million Downloads of Pirated Games in December Alone, Says ESA
Posted on: February 19, 2010
The Entertainment Software Association recently pointed to a new study for which it teamed up with the International Intellectual Property Alliance and which found that during last December 9.78 million pirated copies of video games were downloaded worldwide. 200 specific games were subjected to the study which gave the ESA reasons to think the figures could actually exceed those published considerably.
The largest illegal content downloaded was found in Italy (20.3 % of the total), Spain (12.5 %), France (7.5 %) and China (5.7 %). According to the ESA, the results of the report prove "a strong correlation between countries that lack sufficient protections for technological protection measures and countries where online piracy levels for entertainment software are high," the ESA said in a statement.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/19/10-million-downloads-of-pirated-games-in-december-alone-says-esa/ Post LinkMicrosoft RickRolls Port Slamming BitTorrent Users
Posted on: February 19, 2010
In a blog post, Codify, the operators of the free WiFi network at last year's Microsoft Tech.Ed Australia, described the difficulties they had when a minority of users consumed excessive amounts network resources at peak times.
Although network congestion occurred “admittedly only a few times” the blame was leveled at a small handful of people using BitTorrent, Interestingly, bandwidth consumption wasn't really the problem, it was excessive port usage.
“At this point you have to remember that we have a heap of bandwidth available. Some clients chomping through a lot of bandwidth isn’t a problem and running BitTorrent isn’t a problem per se,” said Codify's David Connor.
The network operators decided that blocking the ports that BitTorrent uses wasn't enough since they are easily changed, blocking the tracker URL was deemed insufficient and inspecting the traffic wouldn't help since the main clients all use encryption. So a much more simple method was used.
“....we implemented certain, ahem, ‘interim countermeasures’,” wrote Connor. “We quickly built a list of all of the top torrent trackers around and got the nod from Jorke [Odolphi, Web Platform Architect Evangelist for Microsoft Australia] to add them all to the local DNS resolver and point them at a local web server containing some RickRoll scripts.”
Microsoft also created a script which categorized WiFi users with a ‘naughty factor', meaning those with the greatest number of active port mappings to distinct remote hosts were identified as BitTorrent users. The MAC addresses of the ‘most naughty' users were blocked – around two dozen of them – and although some changed their MAC addresses and returned, they were identified again by their port usage.
For the 2010 event, users will now have to register their MAC addresses to access the WiFi network and will be allocated resources accordingly. Any problems with downloading movies and TV shows can be directed at the new BitTorrent Help Desk.
The BitTorrent Help Desk
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Ah8mQ91ryg4/ Post Link30 Percent of Americans Don’t Use the Internet, Says Report
Posted on: February 19, 2010A new survey conducted by the Department of Commerce's National
Telecommunications and Information Administration reveals that a large segment of the American population still doesn’t have access to broadband at home or simply doesn’t use the Internet at all. While most Americans can’t imagine life without a fast broadband connection, over a third of the population rely on narrowband Internet devices, with another third claiming to be unable to afford neither type of connection.
Although there is nothing wrong with people not using the Internet, we have to take in consideration that we live in a high-paced, modern society that places a strong emphasis on aspects like information and communication. Therefore, those who can’t access the Internet may find themselves in the impossibility to get a better job or even apply for college or other forms of education, which nowadays demand having a permanent, high-speed broadband connection at your disposal.
The report released by the NTIA, draws its data from a commissioned Census Bureau survey of aproximately 54,000 households and 129,000 citizens. Asked why they don’t access the Internet, 47.2% of the poll’s respondents said they didn’t need or weren’t interested in broadband connection. However, 22.3% said they considered that they didn't have a decent computer to support such a connection, or any computer at all. 8.6% responded broadband Internet was too expensive, while about four percent stated they didn’t have the skill to use the Web.
When asked why they have no Internet connection at home, the "don't need/not interested" response decreased to 16.7% of the sample, while the "too expensive" response increased to 38.9%. Furthermore, when the participants in the poll were asked to give a reason why they don’t upgrade to broadband, the percentage of those not interested decreased to 7.3%, while the numbers of people who considered broadband too expensive jumped to 41.3%.
The data gathered in rural areas produced similar results, with poll participants stressing out that broadband was unaffordable to them. The only difference from the data produced in urban areas consists in a considerable increase in responses that placed broadband in the “unavailable” category, accounting for 11.1%.
The NTIA's survey was conducted to support the Federal Communications Commission’s initiative to provide 100 million homes with 100Mbps Internet access as part of its National Broadband Plan. The agency is targeting Internet adoption rates of 90 percent all over the US in the near future and is hoping to achieve this optimistic goal through implementation of the previously mentioned plan, currently under development.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/18/30-percent-of-americans-don%e2%80%99t-use-the-internet-says-report/ Post LinkTenenbaum Offers $21 Counter Offer to the RIAA
Posted on: February 19, 2010Convicted file-sharer argues that actual damages caused by illegally downloading 30 songs on KaZaA was $21, that being 70 cents for each song record labels would have received if he purchased the music from Apple's iTunes.
Joel Tenenbaum was found guilty of copyright infringement for illegally downloading 30 songs on KaZaA this past August, and was fined a total of $675,000, or $22,500 p/song.
His attorney, Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson, has already decided to appeal the verdict on the grounds that downloading music without a copyright holder’s permission qualifies for “fair use” exemption from copyright laws, and that if an individual file-sharer is not proven to have caused actual losses that they can’t be held liable for damages.
As part of his fair use argument Nesson is making the case that Tenenbaum and other music listeners could not get “exactly the songs they wanted, in exactly the format they wanted” until the music industry did away with DRM in 2007, meaning that the time frame he can claim a fair use exemption should be extended from 2003, the birth of iTunes, to 2007.
Nesson has now filed an additional brief with the District Court of Massachusetts telling the court why Tenenbaum's $675,000 ($22,500 p/song) judgment should be reduced to at most $21 (70 cents p/song), the amount the record labels would have received if he purchased the songs legally on Apple's iTunes.
“Had he purchased the thirty songs on iTunes he would have paid 99 cents apiece, of which Apple would have passed on 70 cents to the record companies,” it reads. “Assuming, contrary to fact, that the record companies have zero costs so that every cent returned to them is profit, the total return would have been $21.00.”
It's hard to argue with that. If he's accused of downloading songs illegally and thereby depriving the record labels of the money to which they are otherwise entitled then $21, plus perhaps a small penalty of some sort, should be all he owes.
Nesson goes on to make the additional argument that simply because he had the songs in his “shared” folder doesn't mean that he's responsible for distributing the songs to millions of others as the record labels claim, and that they wouldn't have realized a single additional sale if had indeed blocked access to his shared folder.
“Not a single person who downloaded these songs using Kazaa would have been impeded from obtaining them had Tenenbaum blocked access to his share folder. Tenenbaum was not a seeder of any of these songs,” it continues. “Whatever damage was caused by the distribution of these thirty immensely popular songs on the peer-to-peer networks was caused by the initial seeders. Once the initial seeds had proliferated, the addition of one more copy to the unlimited, easily-accessible supply could have had no economic consequence whatsoever.”
A hearing for Nesson's new request to lower the judgment verdict is scheduled for February 23rd.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
Investigation On Leaked Pirate Bay Verdict Closes
Posted on: February 19, 2010On April 17th of last year, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstrom were found guilty of ‘assisting in making copyright content available.’ The District Court sentenced the defendants to one year in prison and a fine of $905,000 each.
For most of the people involved the verdict didn't come as a surprise as it had already leaked out. The night before the sentences were read out in court, a journalist had already informed one of the defendants that they would be found guilty.
“Really, it’s a bit LOL,” Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde said at the time, after he was informed about the leak from the Court. “It used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release.”
The District Court itself didn't take the leak as lightly as Sunde and announced that it would ask the police to thoroughly investigate the case. “It is extremely serious,” District Court’s chief Lena Berke said in a comment. “This is a breach of confidentiality.”
In the months that followed the source of the leak was investigated, but without conclusive results. During the investigation it became apparent that the leak originated from the District Court but because of weak computer security it could not be traced back to a single suspect and the investigation has now been closed.
The source of the leak didn't leave any physical traces behind and the Court doesn't log screen activity, which left the police with very little evidence. “You can't go any further if you can't catch a person with his fingers in the cookie jar. It's not easy,” Commissioner Per-Erik Bergner commented.
The District Court will take measures to prevent such confidentiality breaches in the future by installing a new computer system with better logging capabilities. This system is expected to be installed as early as April or May.
The Pirate Bay defendants will get to appeal their case in a few months. No official date has been set for the hearing, but it's not expected before the summer.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/IfRWUEdccsg/ Post LinkThe Ways of P2P & File Sharing
Posted on: February 19, 2010
BitTorrent and P2P networks like Gnutella or Limewire are highly popular among the file-sharing community, but there are myriad other networks and protocols you can choose from, which offer similar transfer speed capabilities and privacy features. With that in mind, let’s have a look at the best alternatives out there, and remember to check our website for more detailed information on the most efficient transfer methods, online networks and download clients.
RapidShare and Megaupload
These web-solutions are always a good option if you are looking to share files with your friends via Facebook, Twitter or forums. To ensure the privacy of your data, all you have to do is utilize a proxy server before initiating any transfers. What’s great about solutions like RapidShare and Megaupload is that they will always have free versions available online, provide good transfer speeds and compete with torrent-using download clients in terms of file availability. When you are unable to find what you want using torrents, you should consider giving these a try, and vice-versa.
Direct Connect Hubs
Probably one of the best alternatives to torrents, Direct Connect hubs are very fast and comprehensive, and provide a highly secure transfer environment. DC hubs are usually localized and provide content descriptions, which means it’s easy to filter through the hub list and aim for the ones who best suit your download needs. Although all hubs are generally renowned for high transfer speeds, elite hubs take speed to the next level, but are also harder to get into. To gain access to the best hubs out there, you need to have a generous Internet connection and share plenty of high-quality content.
3. Forums and other types of private networks
Many BitTorrent users who aren’t satisfied with public sites like The Pirate Bay or EZTV use private forums for sharing files instead. Private networks are huge resources of high-quality data and files, but are also very selective with their users, and sometimes the only way in to such networks is through friends with solid “reputations”. However, if you manage to meet their prerequisites and be accepted, then you’re in download heaven.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/18/the-ways-of-p2p-file-sharing/ Post LinkVuze and Deluge To Be Banned on What.cd And Waffles.fm
Posted on: February 19, 2010If you’re familiar with private torrent trackers, chances are high that you’ve heard about ‘allowed client lists’. On most private trackers, you can’t just use any BitTorrent client to download torrents – the program you use must be a version that’s allowed by tracker staff. If they feel that a particular client/version is harming the overall health of torrent swarm, they usually don’t think twice about naming it a banned client. However, while it’s normal for lesser known and alpha/beta...
Nintendo Wins: DS R4 flash Cart Banned in Australia
Posted on: February 19, 2010
Nintendo has won the legal battle against RSJ IT Solutions of Australia, the company that was making available for purchase R4 flash cart, a tool which enabled gamers to run homebrew on the Nintendo DS handheld. Following the court’s ruling RSJ IT now has to pay Nintendo $520,000 damage compensation.
Besides that RSJ IT was ordered to stop selling the device using any of its sites (gadgetgear.com.au, for example).
While the device has legal uses, it is mostly wanted because it can be used to run pirated games which caused Nintendo to file massive lawsuits in several countries against sellers and importers of the R4 flash cart.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/19/nintendo-wins-ds-r4-flash-cart-banned-in-australia/ Post LinkMultReactor – Russian Tracker With English Kids TV Shows and Cartoon Packs
Posted on: February 18, 2010It’s been a while a kids tracker was featured on this blog. Last one we covered was NepToons, a torrent site that specialized in full season packs of retro cartoons. MultReactor (MR) is a similar tracker – it tracks a lot of kids cartoons, movies and live action drama including plenty of full season packs and complete series packs both old and new. With it’s roots in Russia, MultReactor is part of the DisneyJazz network (await separate article on DJ). Even though a site of Russian origin, good...
Torrents.Ru Is Down – Site Moved to RuTracker.Org
Posted on: February 18, 2010Users of private torrent tracker Torrents.Ru were in for a surprise today. When they tried to access the site using its regular URL www.torrents.ru, they got redirected to a different domain. This was not a simple mistake or a prank played by Torrents.Ru’s admins – the Russian based tracker is apparently having a dispute with authorities about it’s old domain name. It appears that the domain torrents.ru has temporarily been suspended until the matter is resolved. However, the site’s members...
Huge Russian BitTorrent Site Has Domain Suspended
Posted on: February 18, 2010
In the Western world, sites such as The Pirate Bay and isoHunt get plenty of publicity, largely due to their size and prominence. Of course, there are other sites elsewhere that attract relatively little attention in English speaking countries and around Europe, despite being very large indeed.
One such giant is Torrents.ru, a huge Russian BitTorrent site with 4 million torrents and one million users which has operated relatively trouble-free – until now.
RU-Center, Russia's largest domain name registrar and web-hosting provider, today pulled the plug on the Torrents.ru domain name, suspending it with immediate effect.
Andrey Vorobiev, Director of Public Relations at RU-Center said that the domain was blocked on the orders of the Investigative Division of the regional prosecutor's office in Chertanovskaya, Moscow, but could not disclose the reasons.
In the meantime, the operators of Torrents.ru have been working on some counter-measures to mitigate the effects of the suspension.
Already they have set up an alternative domain at Rutracker.org in order for users to keep accessing the site, but of course this doesn't help to keep existing torrents running since they contain the URL of the tracker located at the old domain.
To fix this issue users can change the announce URL in old torrents from bt.torrents.ru, to bt.rutracker.org. Alternatively it's possible to simply go to the site under the new domain and re-download the torrents which now contain the new tracker URL.
A video report is available here (Russian).
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/HL8ntoGnPLg/ Post Link65,000 Irish Download Files Illegally Every Week, Says Study
Posted on: February 18, 2010
I was just wondering how come no p2p survey was published over the last…three weeks (?) when I came across the first “comprehensive survey” of illegal P2P conducted in Ireland and reported by Zeropaid.
Alan Hannaway, the man behind the new study, a researcher at Ireland’s UCD Centre for Cybercrime Investigation (CCI) says that during a single week he found 64,152 IP addresses that were allegedly conducting illegal file sharing over the Internet.
Created in its current form about four years ago, CCI was meant as an institution for training cybercrime investigators and prepare them for the worst in digital criminality. Apparently the worst thing out there are downloaders who don’t even use the content for any commercial gain but for personal use so forget about child pornograpgy, digital theft and other minor cybercrimes. Get those damn file sharers instead!
In a interview to the Irish Times, Hannaway stated that the results obtained through the newly developed software that is “faster and more accurate” than its predecessors follow changes and improvements brought to the original research.
“We took our core research and tweaked it so it would work on these networks and we have a system that can very quickly identify with a certain level of accuracy the peers that are showing these contents at any point in time,” he says. “This was originally a piece of research. We didn’t think that this would have a commercial application, but we have interest from companies that have lost money because of illegal downloading.”
Yet, the new program has something in common with previous software – they share the same shortcoming of not being able to identify the actual individual responsible for the copyright infringement but merely an IP address and since Wi-Fi theft has increased (and will increase even more if ‘three strikes’ law will be further applied or implemented where it’s still pending) it doesn’t prove of much help either. We might even see other cases where the accusing fingers point to an unsuspecting innocent printer (remember the case?)
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/17/65000-irish-download-files-illegally-every-week-says-study/ Post LinkItalians Circumvent Pirate Bay Blockade
Posted on: February 18, 2010BitTorrent tracker site BTjunkie sees 50% jump in Italian visitor traffic.
It was back in early August of 2008 that it a judge from the Court of Bergamo had first ordered Italian ISPs to begin blocking customer access to BitTorrent tracker site the Pirate Bay after complaints from FIMI, the Italian version of the RIAA, of copyright infringement.
The blockade was later lifted on appeal a few months later, but the FIMI persevered and ultimately prevailed this past September.
However, the whole effort was ultimately in vain, for in addition to changing the IP addresses of The Pirate Bay, which made it “work for half the ISPs again,” the site's admins also set up a mirror site called La Baia (labaiia.org) which means “The Bay” in Italian.
Now comes word of proof that Italians are simply yawning and turning to easy alternatives. One BitTorrent tracker site in particular, BTjunkie, has reported an increase in Italian visitor traffic by astounding 50%.
It's fairly obvious to everyone else that you can't filter the Internet unless you're prepared to go to the lengths that totalitarian regimes like China. Aside from simply turning to one of the tens of thousands of alternative tracker sites that exist, there's other measures like VPN services, one offered by the Pirate Bay no less for about $7 bucks a month, that one can also use to bypass any site filtering by ISPs.
Too bad the Italian courts and copyright holders don't understand that as well.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
France Edges Closer to Filtering the Internet
Posted on: February 18, 2010National Assembly approves law requiring ISPs to block access to list of banned websites in the name of fighting child pornography, but critics point out that purveyors of this obscene material long ago turned to encrypted P2P methods to deliver content, making filtering efforts pointless and jeopardizing free speech in the process.
A few days ago the lower house of the French parliament, the National Assembly, passed the first draft of a bill known as Loppsi 2 on a 312-214 vote that would require ISPs to block access to any site deemed necessary by the govt to prevent criminal activity, specifically child pornography.
Even more troubling is that the law will also allow police, under a judge's supervision, to to install Trojan horses on suspects' PCs to remotely monitor for illegal activity.
Critics point out that once the govt establishes a precedent for blocking one type of objectionable or illegal site that it's easy to begin permeating into other areas, like gambling or P2P, as has been the case in Australia with its own plans for filtering the Internet slowly working its way through the govt there.
In other words, as Lucia Soullier – Marianne points out, “nothing can prevent over-blocking” and filtering proposals “may begin on child pornography and then go beyond every conceivable topic.”
Part of the problem is that consumer and distributors of child porn, the main targets in all of this, don't want to get busted by the authorities (go figure) and are usually try to stay well ahead of any methods by which they could be detected.
A study by journalist Fabrice Epelboin on the business of child pornography notes that most already use encrypted P2P networks to distribute content. In fact, since the arrival of Microsoft Server 2008 pedophiles have been renting access to a virtual workstation containing child pornography meaning no files are transferred between client and server and therefore outside prying eyes of law enforcement.
Blocking access to sites is like telling people they can't walk to work when they already driving there.
“We are seeing a whole series of lapses and rights limitations,” says Jean-Pierre Dubois, president of the French League of Human Rights. “The filtering and blocking of the Web has become a standard weapon in the legislative arsenal of a government which has been shameless in its handling of personal freedoms. Loppsi has brought us to a new level...(that) when it comes to restrictions, this text is preparing us for hell.”
The German govt successfully pursued similar efforts there, and in fact just recently a bill was signed into law by the country's president. The problem is that now the govt there has realized the legislation isn't necessary. They're trying to revise the Access Impediment Law, as it is known, so that it would only allow the govt to delete offensive content instead.
The bill now moves forward for a second reading in the French Senate.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
How and Why BitTorrent Works, a Visualization
Posted on: February 18, 2010As with most technology, viewing a simple simulator depicting the inner working of BitTorrent is much easier than having to plow through pages of technicalities and insider lingo. So, for those who never got to read up on what's under the hood of a BitTorrent client, this visualization comes in handy.
The nifty BitTorrent swarm visualization uses processing.js to represent how a BitTorrent swarm works. In particular it may help novices get a grasp on how BitTorrent functions and why it's capable of sending a gigabyte of data to millions of people in only a few minutes.
As most tech-savvy users know, BitTorrent starts with chopping a file into small pieces. The person who starts sharing the file sends those small pieces to available peers in the swarm. The BitTorrent protocol makes sure that the seed sends pieces to everyone, so they can immediately exchange these pieces with each other.
What follows is a sharing fest of bits and bytes. Your BitTorrent client tries to find the rarest piece that’s available among the peers in the swarm to avoid getting stuck at 99% and sharing relies on fair trading principles (tit-for-tat).
In general BitTorrent transfers go faster if the number of seeders in the entire swarm is higher. This means that a torrent with 20 seeders and 50 leechers should result in a better download speed compared to a torrent with 50 seeders and 250 leechers.
The BitTorrent simulation is a simplified visualizations of this process. It works in all up-to-date browsers except Internet Explorer. Seeds can be added to the swarm with the “s” key and peers with the “p” key. The “r” key allows you to delete seeds or peers from the swarm at random.
In 2006 we wrote about an earlier version of this “BitTorrent simulator,” but because the original is no longer online and since many more people use BitTorrent nowadays, the update is appreciated.
BitTorrent Simulator In Action
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/u85ccIKztGg/ Post LinkFix Aliens Vs Predator 3 (AVP 3 - 2010) Crash, Audio Issues And More
Posted on: February 18, 2010They just keep coming don’t they? Another highly anticipated PC title Aliens vs Predator (commonly known as AVP 3 or AVP 2010) was released to the public yesterday. AVP 2010 is the third game in the series which kicked off back in 1999. While the game is mainly bug free, some people seem to be having intermittent crashes to desktop (CTD), black screens, stuttering, distorted, delayed or lagging audio both in game + in cutscenes and various other problems. Most of the crashes and other...
Porn Studios Gag Rival Anti-Piracy Solution
Posted on: February 18, 2010The rise of YouTube and all the adult-focused video streaming sites that followed has caused major headaches for the adult entertainment industry. Instead of having to worry about people seeding their content on BitTorrent, so called “tube sites” are now the prime threat.
The owners of these streaming sites tend to be very cooperative and assist in taking down copyrighted material when they're asked to. In fact, the owners of several popular streaming sites have recently launched a system through which the porn studios can protect their entire catalogs for free.
The system named COP-CMS creates unique fingerprints for each of their videos. It then checks all current videos on the participating “tube” sites and removes any matches it finds and prevents the video from being uploaded in the future.
“We believe we have one the most robust systems available. Videos can be matched even if they're blurred, resized, rotated or have sections removed. Our system is accurate enough to detect a video from just 1 second of footage,” TorrentFreak was told by David, one of the people behind the COP-CMS system.
The innovative anti-piracy solution was picked up by XBIZ, one of the leading adult news outlets, and is already in use by several porn studios. However, not all studios were equally happy about this free anti-piracy service offered by the ‘pirate' tube sites, possibly because it directly competes with their own solution.
In the forum thread discussing the XBIZ article on the COP-CMS system, several studio representatives vent their concerns. The overall opinion seems to be that these “scoundrel thieves” don't deserve the coverage, and not too long after the article was posted the head of leading porn studio TitanMedia replied that “It's been taken care of...”
Indeed, the article on XBIZ was pulled from the site. “We rang xbiz.com and spoke to the editor who said they had been contacted by someone about us and now the article is “dead in the water,” Steve told TorrentFreak, adding that he never got an explanation why.
Coincidentally, the Free Speech Coalition (FSC), the trade association for the adult entertainment industry announced it's very own anti-piracy solution on XBIZ a day later. Could it be that this upcoming competitor was one of the reasons why the other article was pulled?
If we take a look at the directors of the FSC we see that they are made up of a TitanMedia lawyer, the founder of XBIZ and the Senior Editor from AVN news. Something smells fishy here, to say the least.
Meanwhile, COP-CMS continues its free service and is currently working with several studios that are not members of FSC. On the other hand, the Free Speech Coalition might have to rethink whether or not it should change its name after this alleged gagging escapade.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/kArUhBhF3Bk/ Post LinkDanish Anti-Piracy Group Busts Pirate Bay Uploader
Posted on: February 17, 2010Accused of uploading screener copy of Danish flic “Sorte Kugler” (Black Balls) to the Swedish BitTorrent tracker site.
Danish anti-piracy group Antipiratgruppen has raided the home of a Danish main in his 20s over accusations that he illegally uploaded a screener copy of the Danish flic “Sorte Kugler” (Black Balls) to Swedish BitTorrent tracker site the Pirate Bay.
“It is a very big case. It shows the extent of hard drives. And we assume that they are filled with files that are protected by copyright. It will take some time to go through it all,” says the group's assistant attorney, Maria Fredenslund, according to a report on dr.dk.
The group monitors a number of file-sharing sites and networks on a daily basis, and BitTorrent tracker site the Pirate Bay in particular. It was there that it discovered that somebody with a Danish IP address had uploaded the movie to the site.
“There is no doubt that he (uploaded) at least four to five films (to the site that) have violated copyright law, “ added Lund.
Antipiratgruppen approached a judge with the evidence in hand, and the person's ISP was then ordered to divulge the name and address to which the IP address belonged.
As for how much they intend to seek in damages from the man Lund says the group won't “sue him into hell,” insisting the group is made of “nice people.” It will try and determine how much they believe they've lost in profits due to his illegal file-sharing and come up with a number.
Unfortunately, we all know that actual and estimated losses are two entirely different creatures.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
[Hat Tip]
Illicit File-Sharing and Streaming of TV Shows Increases
Posted on: February 17, 2010Following the introduction of Sweden’s IPRED anti-piracy legislation on April 1st last year, the country saw a huge 30% drop in Internet traffic. Many attributed this fall to Internet users become scared that they would be caught downloading and sharing copyright material.
Several months later in November 2009, TorrentFreak looked at some Netnod data which seemed to indicate that not only had Swedish traffic levels returned to pre-IPRED levels, but actually surpassed them.
Swedish traffic recovers after IPRED
Traffic levels naturally increase year-on-year anyway, so it was difficult to be certain that that this boost was related to recovering levels of online piracy. However, new research just published by a consultancy firm seems to suggest that accessing illicit material online is indeed on the increase.
Mediavision bills itself an independent consultancy firm specializing in analyzing consumer behavior within the sphere of digital media. Its clients include media groups, TV channels, advertisers and production companies.
In its just published 2009 fourth quarter report, the company reveals that it detected an increase in the downloading of TV shows during the autumn of that year. In the 15 to 74 year-old bracket, 1.4 million Internet users engaged in that activity.
In the 15 to 24 year old group, 0.5 million used illicit streaming services to access both movies and TV shows, a method which Mediavision believes is becoming more sought after. 20% of the respondents in this age group admitted using them.
The company further says that 60% of 15 to 24 year-olds are estimated to have consumed illicit media online via various means in the fourth quarter of 2009, versus 40% of the 15 to 74 year-olds. This figure is the same as that reported by Mediavision before IPRED was introduced.
Overall, the company says it believes that the accessing of illicit movies and TV shows via the web has recovered at least to pre-IPRED levels, maybe slightly higher.
Jens Heron at Mediavision says that the piracy situation with TV shows would improve if foreign TV shows and other international became more readily available, at a time and place of the consumers' choosing.
“Our analysis shows that consumers increasingly want to decide for themselves when to watch and from which screen. Unfortunately, many have become adept at circumventing the IPRED legislation. The way to remedy this, in addition to legislation, is, of course, by offering great legal alternatives,” he added.
Indeed, as earlier reported, around 10% of Swedes aged between 15 and 25 are taking measures to neutralize IPRED, with as many as 500,000 others in the country following suit. Måns Svensson, PhD in Sociology of Law in Lund, estimated that 6 to 7 percent of all Swedes could now be hiding themselves online.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/kMM5DTZN4MM/ Post LinkSTUDY: Almost 65,000 Irish Suspected of Weekly Illegal P2P
Posted on: February 17, 2010Researcher at Ireland's UCD Centre for Cybercrime Investigation (CCI) identifies 64,152 users he claims are suspected of illegal file-sharing “last week alone.”
I always love a good study in the morning and so it was a new one by researcher Alan Hannaway at Ireland's UCD Centre for Cybercrime Investigation (CCI) that caught my eye.
Billed as the first “comprehensive survey” of illegal P2P in Ireland, he identified some 64,152 IP addresses that he claims were involved in copyright infringement “last week alone.”
Hannaway told the Irish Times that the identifications methods were borne from original research that was modified and improved to create software that is “faster and more accurate” than anything previous.
“We took our core research and tweaked it so it would work on these networks and we have a system that can very quickly identify with a certain level of accuracy the peers that are showing these contents at any point in time,” he says. “This was originally a piece of research. We didn’t think that this would have a commercial application, but we have interest from companies that have lost money because of illegal downloading.”
Therein lies the rub.
CCI was formally established back in 2006 to help educate those investigators needing “a set of special skills, such as methods of classic computer forensics, live computer forensics, and specific tactics of cybercrime investigation” to pursue cybercrime cases.
What makes illegal downloading so much different from other so-called “cybercrimes” is that it mainly involves sharing copyrighted material for noncommercial gain. Although copyright holders can argue the practice results in a loss of profits their perceived losses and actual losses are practically impossible to discern.
Also, this new software still makes the same mistake of identifying only an IP address and not the actual person responsible. It's already been shown that people can easily hijack a person's Wi-Fi connection and that a inanimate objects like printers can also be blamed.
Let's hope the CCI decides to focus on more pressing concerns like identity theft and child porn.
Stay tuned.
jared@zeropaid.com
Blocked Pirate Bay Users Flock to Other Torrent Sites
Posted on: February 17, 2010The Italian Pirate Bay case came to an end last week after a lengthy legal battle. The Court of Bergamo concluded that The Pirate Bay was engaging in criminal activity by linking to torrents that point to copyrighted material.
The judge ordered all Italian ISPs to block the site's DNS and all current and future IP-addresses. A few days later the blockade went into effect, preventing millions of Italians from accessing The Pirate Bay.
Many Italians described the ruling as outrageous and labeled Italy as “the new China,” but, as with most technical measures taken to hinder file-sharing, the Pirate Bay blockade is relatively easy to circumvent. True Pirate Bay fans can sign up at a free VPN service to regain access or simply move on to one of the many Pirate Bay alternatives.
The latter is what hundreds of thousands of Italian Pirate Bay users are doing.
The owner of BTjunkie has informed TorrentFreak that he has seen a huge jump in traffic from Italians after the blockade was enforced. His site today received 50% more Italian visitors compared to a week ago, indicating that Italian Pirate Bay users are not planning to stop using BitTorrent.
The problem remains that the Court ruling sets a worrying precedent, and leaves the door open for many more censorship requests to be made against other popular torrent sites. A virtual cat and mouse game will be the result, with the only beneficiaries being the lawyers.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/B8D_bskLhZA/ Post LinkNews – Open Signups, No Olympic Torrents On BitMeTV, HT Merges With PolishSource
Posted on: February 17, 2010A quick update from the BitTorrent front – three more good looking private torrent trackers have opened signup. nTorrents - a games tracker that focuses a lot on Nintendo stuff, PackMe.In – a ratio free packs only tracker which indexes torrent collections and ElbitZ – one of the oldest E-Learning trackers around, are all currently open to the public. In the meantime, HeavenTracker has merged with PolishSource to form a new Gazelle based 0Day tracker named HeavenSource. In other news the popular...
LeechPack: MultiNetwork File Sharing Service Pack for File Sharing Freaks
Posted on: February 17, 2010
For file sharing enthusiasts, the ongoing search for quality downloads and the best transfer speeds possible through the myriad of dedicated services out there can sometimes become overwhelming and frustrating, not to mention time consuming and expensive. There are times when the drawbacks in the assiduous task of finding the right transfer link, combined with the long periods of lingering in front of the PC until the download is finally completed can be virtually discouraging. Even people who pay big money for premium access to multiple file sharing networks still stumble across some of these problems.
In my opinion, the whole idea behind file sharing should be about availability, cost-efficiency and obtaining what you want through as few steps as possible, so why does it have to be so hard then? Wouldn’t it be great to have someone do all the work for you? Fortunately, now you can have someone manage and assist your downloads all under one comprehensive dedicated service: LeechPack.com.
Designed by downloaders for downloaders, LeechPack is a growing collaborative service that primarily acts as a gateway between the most known file sharing systems. At present, the online service provides support for Rapidshare, Megaupload and BitTorrent, with HotFile, DepositFiles and many more to be added soon. With LeechPack, you can access the most popular file sharing sites from one single account, so you also save a lot of money.
From the user’s perspective, the way LeechPack works is simple: “Basically, you enter a link, or a set of links, in our LeechBox, the servers get it for you and give you a direct download link.You also have access to other downloads in real time and a powerful search engine, among many others kickass features!”, the site reads.
With LeechPack, there are only three steps to follow before you can enjoy the files you are after. First, you have to submit your Rapidshare, Megaupload or Torrent link into the “Links Manager” tool. From there, the site’s servers will handle everything for you and return a direct download link. Finally, you can use your favorite download manager to collect your links and download them straight to your PC.
What’s great about LeechPack is that it works offline, so you don’t need to leave your PC or laptop turned on all night anymore. Other promised features are high transfer speeds and download protection using a 256-bit encrypted connection.
So, how much do you have to spend to enjoy all this? LeechPack charges 9.99 euros for the minimum monthly pack, which includes 30Gb of traffic and 30Gb of space. From there, fees go up to 78.99 for the yearly pack, with 400Gb of traffic in addition to the 30Gb of space.
The downside of the service would be the effort it requires from you to create torrent files but for the file sharing freaks out there I guess that's not such a big problem after all.
Although at first glance, LeechPack’s offer may seem a little pricey, it stands out as a solid alternative to premium accounts on multiple file sharing networks and could prove to be a good investment on the long run judging by the benefits involved.
P2PON will be offering its readers 100 free invites to use LeechPack, and each free account will be capped to 1Gb for both disk and download quota. Once you reach that limit, you will have the option to buy more traffic from the site’s monthly traffic packages. Considering LeechPack is at its very beginning, you now have the possibility to be among the first who use the service, evaluate its pros and cons, send in your feedback and bring your contribution to promoting high quality downloads by helping the site grow.
Account data for leechpack login
Username: p2pon
Password:p2ponrocks
Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde Starts Money Sharing Site
Posted on: February 17, 2010
Computers and the Internet have made it extremely easy for anyone to produce content, and distribute it to millions of users.
Musicians and movie makers can share their work with the rest of the world with very little investment, something that was impossible little over a decade ago. Similarly, weblogs are able to provide news and information much faster than old media at relatively low costs.
The Internet has brought us a tool to share and consume content, but up until now there has been no really easy way for the consuming side to reward content producers. Flattr, a new venture started by The Pirate Bay's former spokesman Peter Sunde, opts to change this.
Flattr has been in development since 2007 and finally opened up in Beta this week. It is best described as a mashup between social content discovery sites such as Digg, Reddit and Stumbleupon, and an online payment service like Paypal.
“It's a new revenue stream for people who share their content! It's a combination of a donation system and a quality list of interesting content online,” said Peter Sunde describing the service to TorrentFreak.
Users who join the site can use it to discover interesting articles, great music and useful software, like on the aforementioned social discovery sites. If they see something they like they can give it a thumbs up, which is nothing new either.
The innovative part is that users of Flattr set a monthly budget they are willing to donate each month to the content they like. This can be as low as $2, or whatever the user is willing to share. At the end of the month the money is shared between the creators of the content they liked, who are all Flattr users as well.
In other words, Flattr allows consumers to flatter content producers for a flat-rate fee, and offers a revenue stream to those who create and share content.
The idea behind Flattr is innovative, but for the service to be a success the user base has to be significant. If Sunde and friends succeed in that they have an ideal solution to pay off the people who share their work for free.
Those who want to give Flattr a try can sign up for a Beta invite.
Flattr
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/aZ_7BwM3E50/ Post LinkPirate Bay Uploader Raided By Anti-Piracy Group
Posted on: February 16, 2010While conducting their usual monitoring of file-sharing networks, anti-piracy outfit Antipiratgruppen noticed that a user with a Danish IP address was uploading a screener copy of the Anders Matthesen movie ‘Black Balls' via The Pirate Bay.
Antipiratgruppen collected evidence and asked a court to force TDC, the man's ISP, to reveal his identity and home address. The court complied.
Armed with a warrant and a representative from the court, last week Antipiratgruppen carried out a raid on the man's Herning home to gather evidence of his alleged offenses.
Maria Fredenslund, lawyer with Antipiratgruppen, was keen to emphasize the significance of the raid.
“We are waiting for the IT expert's report on yesterday's action, but there is no doubt that he is behind massive violations of copyright. We found and seized several hard drives, web server, etc. so it will take time to go through it all. The case is a good example of how a case which at first glance seemed modest, in fact, is about massive piracy. At least in Denmark,” she said in a statement.
Although Fredenslund said that they presume the man's hard drives were filled with copyright content which made it a “very big case”, she also noted that the man in his 20's had to her knowledge only violated movie copyrights online four or five times. A quick look at the user's Pirate Bay account seems to confirm he has uploaded a handful of movies and a small number of music torrents.
Fredenslund told Danish media that Antipiratgruppen secured an injunction against the man so if he continues to share files he can be punished. Speaking of the man with DR.dk, she said that her group doesn't intend to “sue him to hell” since they are “nice people”, but will need to see the volume of files traded in order to calculate the compensation required.
In November 2009, Antipiratgruppen announced that after losing several court cases they had largely given up on trying to get illegal file-sharers convicted, mainly due to their inability to gather solid evidence.
Indeed, the Danish courts have ruled several times that in terms of evidence, an IP-address alone is insufficient to prove guilt. However, the new tactic is to label people like this screener uploader and torrent site operators as “big fish” in order to get a warrant to seize physical evidence.
Fredenslund said that because this man was the first to make Black Balls available on the Internet, Antipiratgruppen had considered this as an aggravating factor which justified their action.
Equally, the recent raid on the operator of the EliteBits BitTorrent tracker was targeted at “traffickers”, she explained.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/xBrC5jSZHzQ/ Post LinkKickassTorrents Reveals BitTorrent Search Trends
Posted on: February 16, 2010
KickassTorrents made a name for itself last year by implementing many new features that competitor torrent sites don't have.
As a result the site's traffic exploded and by the end of 2009 it got a well deserved entry in the list of most popular torrent sites of the year.
For 2010 KickassTorrents is planning to continue down this road by building a steady user base. The site now serves more than 500,000 searches every day and this figure is going up rapidly. On the development side the site's operators haven't been sitting still either.
One of the site's newest features is a search trends section where users can browse through a listing of the 30 most searched for terms for any given day or month. Aside from the obvious habits, the feature reveals some interesting and noteworthy trends.
It might not come as a surprise that “Avatar” has been the most search for term in January and February, as it was the most popular search nearly every day. Perhaps a bit more surprising is the number two spot for the phrase “Valentines Day” yesterday, making it the 23rd most searched for phrase in February thus far.
Although “Valentines Day” might not be something you would expect the average BitTorrent user to be looking for, it does mimic this weekend's box-office success of the film carrying the same name. Similarly, the Bollywood hit “My Name Is Khan” has been doing very well in recent days, scooping the number one spot (in the trends list) away from Avatar on Saturday.
Aside from these searches related to current events, there are also quite a few household phrases in the trends list. “French” and “Ita” for example are common search terms on most BitTorrent sites, used by French and Italians to find content in their native language. Both terms are in the top 5 nearly every day.
Other phrases are more time sensitive and only appear in the trends list on certain days of the week. TV-shows such as Heroes, Lost and 24 usually appear there a day after they air on TV, and disappear from it in the days that follow.
Interestingly, the term “aXXo” is still appearing in the top 30 list even though the notorious DVD-ripper released his latest film almost a year ago, long before KickassTorrents even existed. Old habits are hard to kick apparently.
The trends list is a useful resource for anyone interested in search trends that surface on BitTorrent and may serve as inspiration to others. It will be interesting to see how the list evolves over the months to come and how it compares to the top downloads charts we produce at the end of each year.
BitTorrent Search Trends February
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/id9bAW8uCaY/ Post LinkNBC Plots Crackdown On Olympic Pirates
Posted on: February 16, 2010
The 2008 Summer Olympics were a huge hit online, both through legal and illegal channels. NBC streamed a record breaking 2,200 hours of live video to the delight of millions of people, but strangely enough this year the network will limit its live coverage to hockey and curling.
An NBC representative explained that the network will only cover the highlights because people “are not dying to watch lots of long-form content on a 13-inch screen.” However, at the same time NBC contradicts itself by announcing that it will do all it can to prevent people from accessing unauthorized live feeds or downloads of Olympic broadcasts.
While NBC doesn't believe there is much demand for live coverage, it will do all it can to prevent the ‘few' people who do from downloading or streaming the events online. “Our aim is to make access to pirated material inconvenient, low quality and hard to find,” said Rick Cotton, NBC’s Executive Vice President commenting on their Olympic mission.
Once again one of the major entertainment industry outfits has got it entirely wrong. If NBC really wants to prevent piracy they have to offer at least some sort of alternative. Cutting 2,200 hours of live web coverage back to just a few hundred is certainly not going to help in stopping piracy.
NBC reportedly has teamed up with Ustream and Justin.tv, two popular live streaming sites, to use filtering schemes in order to prevent illegal broadcasts. However, it is inevitable that they won't be able to stop them all since there are dozens of live streaming sites. Preventing torrents from being uploaded will turn out to be even more problematic for the network.
During the Beijing Olympics two years ago, The International Olympic Committee (IOC) asked for “assistance” from the Swedish government with preventing video clips from the Olympics in Beijing being shared via The Pirate Bay. This didn't help much and during the weeks that followed millions of people continued to download broadcasts of Olympic events.
We assume that in the coming weeks most events will again appear online, despite NBC's efforts to prevent the Olympics from being pirated.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Z1L4Dnc7QRE/ Post Link?Torrent 2.1 Alpha (2.1.18069) and Vuze for Windows 4.3.1.4 Released
Posted on: February 16, 2010Here’s quick update on new BitTorrent client releases. Both uTorrent and Vuze (formerly Azureuz), the two most popular BT clients in the world, have released new builds of their software to the public. After releasing uTorrent 2.0 Final the the masses several days ago, it seems the UT team is busy working towards their next major milestone; uTorrent 2.1. Another new alpha build was released released yesterday and albeit still a long way away it’s another step closer to the highly anticipated...
New File Swap Application Flirts with Music Industry
Posted on: February 16, 2010Unloader is a file swap app that promotes low-cost music downloads and new revenue generating system
Lexink, a company that provides innovation and expertise in information technology, advertising, and film production, has announced the launching of its new file sharing application which, it claims, can help music industry cut back from the losses due to piracy and also offer consumers a safe, low-cost means to legally download music.
Through this application, called UNLOADER the company aims at creating a new revenue stream for the download store, record labels, studios and artists. Unloader is intended as a app with a touch for business. Instead of just buying MP3s for your own pleasure and use why not further resell them and make profit? After purchasing a title at its full price sale you can use it to further generate income as it is unloaded. Makes you go..hmmm, doesn’t it?
What exactly does UNLODER do?
In the developer’s own words, it: “lets you trade in your unwanted multimedia titles for new content. You simply post the music, TV shows or movies that you would like to unload from your digital library. UNLODER™ is integrated into the Media Player digital download store so once you unload a title and someone purchases it, the media vanishes from your library and you can no longer play it. You get store credit that you can redeem for other unloaded content on the resale store or brand new titles from the online store. UNLODER™ allows you to list which titles you are interested in buying and lets you know when they are available.”
The company warns about the dangers when using 'free downloads' sites which can hide viruses and various types of malware and promotes its product as a solution to the illegal file sharing. It remains to be seen how attractive it will prove to both record companies and music fans that are used to getting what they want fast and easy.
Three Arrested As Police Swoop on Rapidshare Link Forum
Posted on: February 16, 2010
With 30,000 members Filmowisko was a prominent file-sharing forum. The site didn't host any illicit material, but like many of its type, linked to movies, TV shows, music and other warez stored on hosting sites such as Rapidshare.
“Forum administrators are not responsible for content written by users. The files placed here by users are only for promotional purposes. After 24 hours you must delete all files downloaded from this forum,” said the disclaimer on the front page of the site before it disappeared.
Polish police and the Foundation for the Protection of Audiovisual Creativity (FOTA) anti-piracy group clearly didn't think the disclaimer counted for much, and on February 12th conducted raids against the site's operators.
During the raid last Friday, police say they arrested three individuals on suspicion of running the site – a 21 year-old computer science student and two teenagers aged 16 and 17 – and also conducted searches on site members in three other locations.
Equipment was seized including 6 computers and 150 DVDs and CDs which allegedly contained copyright infringing content.
After lengthy questioning the 21 and 17 year-olds were released and now face copyright infringement charges which carry a maximum 5 year prison sentence in Poland. The 16 year-old, who was reported yesterday as still being detained, will be dealt with by the family courts.
The police, who are still to officially confirm the name of the site, say that “streaming movies” were also available via the forum and that those arrested benefited financially from operating the site as they collected revenue from advertising.
They add that the collected evidence is being examined by experts in order to assess the level of damages suffered by the creators of the films and music whose work was linked to by the site.
Anti-piracy group FOTA, which awards the police with “Golden Plate” accolades for carrying out piracy crackdowns on their behalf, will undoubtedly be pleased with this result.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/WJTscGMko24/ Post LinkTV-Links Triumphs With Landmark E-Commerce Directive Ruling
Posted on: February 16, 2010When news broke that TV-Links.co.uk had been raided by police and admin Dave Rock arrested, it was met with a certain element of disbelief. TV-Links was not a warez or torrent site, but one which linked to videos hosted on sites like YouTube. It carried absolutely zero illicit content.
This major detail wasn't of much concern to the UK's Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), whose investigation along with Trading Standards later came to involve the police.
Rather than go after giants like YouTube, Google Video, Veoh and DailyMotion who actually hosted the content, FACT built a case against the operators of TV-Links, David Rock – aka ‘Sin' – and site partner David Overton who was raided 5 months later.
Dave Rock later explained that it would've been an easy task for FACT to track him down, since he never made any attempts at secrecy.
“To be honest I didn’t really attempt to hide my ID, as under UK Law linking to another site isn’t illegal, so I didn’t see the need,” he told TorrentFreak in a November 2008 interview.
There was confusion as to the basis for the initial raid, with FACT citing “offenses relating to the facilitation of copyright infringement on the Internet” – an offense that doesn't even exist under UK law – with Trading Standards and the police referring to “supplying property with a registered trade mark without permission.”
After a long wait the official allegations became Conspiracy to Defraud and breaches of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act. Similar fraud allegations were leveled at Alan Ellis, the ex-admin of OiNK.
More than 2 years of waiting later, in January 2010 the TV-Links case went to court. On the 19th January 2010 the operators of TV-Links – represented by Morgan Rose Solicitors, counsel William Clegg QC and Alex Stein for David Rock, and Ian Bridge for David Overton – raised preliminary points of law and asked for the proceedings to be dismissed.
This week Judge Ticehurst gave his judgment, announcing that TV-Links had won their case. He ruled in detail for the first time in a Crown Court in relation to Section 17 of the European Commerce Directive 2000, stating that Section 17 indeed applied and afforded TV-Links a complete defense in criminal proceedings in England and Wales for their linking to other web sites. In a nutshell and to coin a familiar phrase, the site was deemed a mere conduit of information.
The Judge also ruled that the allegations under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act failed because there was no evidence that TV-Links made available to the public the films and shows they linked to. There is no appeal available to FACT against this ruling.
The Judge noted that FACT had not applied the Attorney General’s guidelines when deciding to prosecute the defendants with Conspiracy to Defraud.
Morgan Rose Solicitors also represented OiNK owner Alan Ellis in January 2010, successfully defending a Conspiracy to Defraud charge. In OiNK's case there was no ruling on the e-commerce directive, but Mr Ellis was unanimously acquitted, the jury finding him not guilty.
Both cases cost the public purse a large amount of money and even though FACT ran a private prosecution, it is the tax payer which picks up the bill for both the defense and prosecution costs.
The Court of Appeal has twice stated in games console mod-chip cases (R v Gilham and R v Higgs) that cases involving complicated issues of copyright law ought not to be tried before a jury but should instead be dealt with in Chancery where specialist judges can try these cases more efficiently and grant an injunction if required.
Although TV-Links triumphed in the end, there were many obstacles to overcome. In late 2008 after Dave's TorrentFreak interview, the defendants were served with a financial restraining order under Proceeds of Crime legislation. This meant that the necessary funds required to mount a full defense against the MPAA-funded FACT were simply unavailable. But things came good in the end.
“In the process of successfully obtaining a court order to discharge the Restraint Order against the defendants, a copy of the agreement came to light. Had the Restraint Order remained in place it would have severely hamstrung David Rock in presenting his defense – under legal aid Representation Order it would not have been possible to appoint Mr Clegg QC, who was outstanding,” TV-Links' legal team told TorrentFreak.
“I’d just like to thank Simon Rose from Morgan Rose Solicitors, William Clegg QC, Alex Stein and Ian Bridge for the positive result,” Dave Rock told TorrentFreak, as he moves to put the last two traumatic years behind him.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/RV_jTGaNTn4/ Post LinkTop Ten Most Downloaded P2P File Sharing Clients
Posted on: February 16, 2010
To get a better view on how the peer-to-peer scene is evolving with respect to what file sharing software people prefer to download, we keep you posted weekly with the latest numbers. So here’s a list with last week's top ten most downloaded p2p file sharing programs – the chart is based on figures published by Download.cnet.com and it refers to the number of times a p2p client was downloaded from their site (click on the names for download):
Week ended February 14
| P2P Client | Number of downloads (last week) | Number of downloads (total) |
| 1.Limewire (current version 5.4.6) | 567,044 | 201,256,844 |
| 2.Frostwire (current version: 4.18.6) | 248,162 | 27,243,590 |
| 3.BitComet (current version: 1.18) | 120,292 | 76,360,907 |
| 4.uTorrent (current version 2.0 build 17920) | 80,966 | 7,227,477 |
| 5.Mp3 Rocket (current version 5.3.8) | 49,975 | 5,575,847 |
| 6.BitTorrent (current version 6.3) | 29,128 | 16,128,100 |
| 7.Vuze (current version: 4.3.0.4) | 11,517 | 7,129,703 |
| 8.Limewire Pro (current version: 5.4.6) (buy) |
10,226 | 991,754 |
| 9.ZapShare (current version 3.5) | 8,467 | 23,771 |
| 10.Morpheus (current version: 5.4.0. 1080) |
6,758 | 174,139,578 |
(http://download.cnet.com/windows/)
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/14/top-ten-most-downloaded-p2p-file-sharing-clients-9/ Post LinkMassive DDOS Attack Targeted P2PNet
Posted on: February 16, 2010
Often when a voice becomes clearly distinguishable, pertinent and with the ability of forming opinions and inspiring dissidence, efforts are made to silence it. Earlier this week, the crew at p2pnet for whom we have great respect and appreciation has been the victim of such efforts. To cut to the chase here’s what the website read a few days ago:
Someone out there wants to stop p2pnet from broadcasting news and information the powers-that-used-to-be don’t want reported.
Last night, the p2pnet server in Europe was hit by a massive DDOS attack.
Some 50,000,000 packets arrived over a 300-second period.
p2pnet is hosted by multibox.be in Belgium, and its servers are in turn hosted in Germany’s Hetzner Data centers.
I understand a German court investigation has been launched.
Do you want p2pnet to keep on posting? Then you can be a huge help by becoming a patron.
We hope any threat has been removed and we hereby announce our total support to the guys at p2pnet.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/14/massive-ddos-attack-targeted-p2pnet/ Post Link11 Best DDL Forums To Download E-Books, Mobile Appz, Documentaries, Comics & More
Posted on: February 15, 2010Long time readers of FILEnetworks Blog would be familiar with our collective open signup updates for private torrent trackers. Each month, we post an article with summarized information about notable private trackers that were frequently reviewed on the blog. However, we’ve been writing about a lot of Direct Download Link (DDL) forums lately, in addition to private trackers. Since we don’t post summarized updates for DDL forums, some of our readers seem to have missed out on some pretty cool...
Nintendo Pirate Fined $1.5 Million
Posted on: February 15, 2010
Major distribution companies now use forensic technology in their battle against illegal file sharing, which facilitated the prosecution of James Burt from Queensland, recently mandated by the Federal Court to pay damages of $1.5 million for uploading a Nintendo game on the Internet.
The state-of-the-art technology aided in identifying the man responsible for pirating and illegally sharing a new Super Mario Bros game that was still waiting to be officially released. The upload generated record-breaking activity among the community of downloaders, with 50,000 downloads in only six days.
According to Nintendo managing director Rose Lappin, the prosecution of James Burt was necessary, considering the losses he brought upon the company through his actions. "We will go to any lengths to stop piracy, including going after the individual," Ms Lappin declared in an interview. 'The bottom line is people like James Burt are stealing our company's intellectual property and I would not hesitate to use the same technology on other individuals who are stealing," she then added.
The new forensic technology implemented by the authorities is primarily aimed at monitoring the moves of recidivating uploaders before catching them red-handed. The Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) are also considering the idea of adopting the technology in its approach on copyright infringement, claiming that the Nintendo case should be regarded as an alarm signal and justifying that "Consumers have to be aware that it's all on in the public domain."
Music industry’s excuse to focus on pursuing the individual is motivated through the lack of response from the government and ISPs concerning file sharing. Reports indicate that 2.8 million Australians use file-sharing networks to download music illegally every year.
What’s interesting is that under Australian law, ISPs can’t be mandated to send notifications or warnings to customers engaged in illegal uploading. In an attempt to fill the gaps in existing legislation, the entertainment industry has pressured the government to elaborate a code of conduct for all ISPs, following the example of countries such as France, South Korea and Taiwan.
The Australian Digital Alliance, which advocates the proportional and pertinent use of the copyright law, declared for the press: "The debate must be refocused on the adoption of new business models that compete with file sharing and entice people to purchase legitimate downloads.” The organization promotes the idea that the content and Internet industries should work hand in hand to encourage legal downloading, rather than force ISPs to become “copyright cops” through even more restrictive regulations.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/14/nintendo-pirate-fined-1-5-million/ Post LinkIcelandic torrent tracker must stay offline says Supreme Court
Posted on: February 15, 2010 |
The Icelandic Supreme Court has ruled that the Icelandic BitTorrent tracker Istorrent must stay offline. Istorrent was taken offline more than two years ago due to allegations of violating the copyright law. |
Awesome-HD Open For Signup On Valentine’s Day
Posted on: February 15, 2010Last time we talked about the popular high definition torrent tracker Awesome-HD (AHD), it wasn’t about good news. Dealing a critical blow to AHD, one of their main encoders EuReKA left the site to join HD-Torrents, another HD tracker. To make things worse, EuReKa took the domain www.awesome-hd.com along with him. Although many believed AHD to die after the incident, it never happened. The site bounced back on a new domain and life seems to have returned to normal at AHD with torrents flowing...
Torrent Script – New Tracker For Templates, Scripts, Clones, Flash And More
Posted on: February 15, 2010In a world full of General/0Day trackers, it’s always nice to see a new specialized tracker being launched. Torrent Script is a private tracker that fills a void in the BitTorrent community. It’s a site that focuses on web development related content such as CMS, website templates, fonts, scripts (Ajax, PHP, etc), clone scripts, plugins, vector graphics and more. Although a brand new project, web developers, designers, software engineers, graphics designers, students or mere enthusiasts of any...
File Sharing Losing Ground to Streaming? The Duel Continues
Posted on: February 15, 2010
Some months ago we were discussing some reports, rising questions and making predictions in the debate file sharing over streaming. Now we bring the issue back to your attention.
Despite still being expected to gain some ground, file sharing in Sweden seems to be no match for increasingly popular online streaming of TV shows and films, the Internet company Cisco informs in a report.
Since the founders of prominent file sharing website The Pirate Bay lost the court case filed against them in Sweden, a sensibly large segment of Internet users have decided to turn away from the practice of sharing films and music online.
Thanks to higher speed broadband Internet connections becoming available, streaming video services are now preferred, as they don’t require users to download files protected by copyright law and risk becoming targeted by the authorities.
"We calculate that file sharing will become less important, even though the actual numbers doing it will still increase," Henrik Bergqvist, technical manager at Cisco Sweden recently declared in an interview for the news agency TT.
Although Swedish law stipulates that the upload of streaming services is prohibited, accessing such services for watching videos or listening to music is allowed. Unable to further run The Pirate Bay in Sweden, the file sharing website’s founders are currently working on a dedicated video streaming site called Video Bay, which will be launched in a few months’ time. The decision to initiate the project came after studying the directions in the market and was influenced by services like Spotify and Voddler, which have managed to attract many users.
Cisco’s prognostic places the evolution of file sharing on a lower level compared to online streaming in the coming years. While file sharing is expected to grow at a rate of 80 per cent per year, the annual growth for online streaming is speculated to revolve somewhere around 130 per cent.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/14/file-sharing-losing-ground-to-streaming-the-duel-continues/ Post LinkOlympics Opening Ceremony a Hit On BitTorrent
Posted on: February 14, 2010Just a few hours after the video of the Vancouver 2010 Opening Ceremony was posted on BitTorrent, it has already been downloaded by tens of thousands of people.
In 2008 Olympic torrents were hugely popular, especially the Opening Ceremony which was downloaded by nearly 5 million people. It is doubtful that this 2008 Olympic record will be broken this year, but nonetheless, there is plenty of interest on BitTorrent for the 2010 Opening Ceremony.
As with most big sporting events there are huge commercial interests involved in the Olympics. This is one of the main reasons why the International Olympic Committee and broadcasters such as NBC have announced a piracy crackdown, trying to prevent their content from leaking online.
“Our aim is to make access to pirated material inconvenient, low quality and hard to find,” said Rick Cotton, NBC’s Executive Vice President commenting on their Olympic mission. It is needless to say that this mission has already failed miserably.
The Opening Ceremony could be watched online through dozens of illegal streams last night, and a few hours later a high quality video of the entire broadcast appeared on file-sharing networks including BitTorrent. Thus far, nearly 100,000 people have downloaded the Opening Ceremony through BitTorrent.
A quick look at the locations of the downloaders reveals that roughly a quarter are Canadians. Another 15% of the downloaders come from the United States, followed by the UK with 5% and The Netherlands and Australia both with 4%.
In the coming days many of the sporting events will also surface online illegally, but the interest for the opening and closing ceremonies tend to be the highest, based on download numbers from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
It is expected that the International Olympic Committee will be outraged over this massive rights violation. In 2008 they urged Sweden to take action against the Pirate Bay over the Olympic torrents that they hosted, without result.
Maybe they should start offering their own sponsored downloads in 2012? There is plenty of demand for it.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/gSLL9fGzKus/ Post LinkThe Pirate Bay Evades Being Blocked in Norway By the Country’s Largest ISP
Posted on: February 14, 2010
Computerworld has recently stated in a report that following the verdict of Norway’s High Court, Telenor – the largest ISP in the country is no longer obliged to block its costumers’ access to The Pirate Bay’s website.
The court’s decision finally relieves Telenor of the great amount of pressure employed by record labels and several other rights holders that were determined to take the ISP to court unless it gave in and blocked the Pirate Bay. Not intimidated by the threats received, Telenor refused to play along and the music rights association TONO eventually started legal proceedings against it. However, TONO lost the two lawsuits against Telenor, the latter producing an irrevocable decision in favor of the ISP.
The High Court concluded that the ISP couldn’t be held responsible for the actions of its customers solely for allowing access to the Bay’s website. The court assessed that the premise of complicit liability pleaded by TONO in its case against Telenor, was covered somewhat vaguely in existing legislation, and claimed that the matter needed to be reexamined by politicians for strengthening of the country’s copyright laws.
Refusal to block The Pirate Bay got not only Telenor in trouble, but many ISPs in several other European countries as well. In Denmark, for instance, the music industry managed to snatch a court’s decision that obligated Danish ISP Tele2 to block users’ access to The Pirate Bay, while a verdict from an Italian court required all its country’s ISPs to prevent costumers from accessing the same torrent site.
FeelHome – Access Your Home Computer From Work Or Anywhere Else
Posted on: February 14, 2010Recently we talked about SkyDrive Explorer, a software that allows you to browse your cloud based storage from within my computer. The software featured in this post, FeelHome, does quite the opposite of what SkyDrive Explorer does. It allows you to connect to your home computer through a web browser from anywhere in the world. With this cool app, you can browse the hard disk of your home computer, copy files, alter files, share and save them from remote locations may it be at work, school or...
MooZar Aims To Turn Pirates Into Paying Customers
Posted on: February 14, 2010
Over the years there have been quite a few starry-eyed companies who believe that they have the answer to online piracy, turning the millions who access unauthorized music online into a significant source of revenue for the recording industry.
The latest outfit set to attempt online musical alchemy are known as MooZar. The company was recently touting its wares at MIDEM and has been running very large, very expensive ads recently, both online and in print. So what miracle are they going to perform?
Imagine this scenario. You've downloaded your favorite artist's latest track from a torrent site, or maybe even a blog or Rapidshare. Half way through listening you suddenly became overcome with guilt – the artist, the label, the copyright holders and everyone else involved in making the track deserve to get paid and you have no way of making this happen.
But then you remember MooZar, the site which enables illicit downloaders to compensate the artists and copyright holders. You head over to the site after the February 26th launch date, admit that you're a pirate, pay some money into your account, MooZar sends the artist/rights holder some money and all is forgiven. Simple.
In theory.
MooZar seems to be trying to set itself up as some sort of intermediary between creators and downloaders, so in order for this system to work the downloaders/artists/rights holders in question have to create their own MooZar account in advance to be able to send or receive payments.
The amount people can pay is open, but the default minimum suggested payment/donation is set at 1 euro per track, of which MooZar says it will take a 20% handling fee before passing the rest on. Simple thus far, but now the complexity and inevitable politics kick in.
While this type of service might be of interest for artists not on the big labels or those without a deal at all, imagine for a moment those who are already selling their music online, for example on iTunes. If the minimum donation amount is set higher or equal to that on iTunes it wouldn't make much sense for a downloader to use MooZar. If the price was set to a lower price than iTunes, it could have the effect of driving people away from iTunes and onto file-sharing networks – not that good for Apple.
As the operators of the failing Qtrax ad-supported service might admit privately, the secret of success in this area lies in getting the big labels – EMI, SonyBMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group – on board and supporting the service. While it seems unlikely that these companies will warm to another middle man taking 20% of ‘their' money, it is even more difficult to imagine a situation where these giants – who have spent much of the last decade trying to destroy file-sharing services and downloading in general through legal action – would about turn and invest in a project which would drive people towards the target of their destruction.
MooZar doesn't completely overlook the legal issues though. They are proposing a situation where if the donor pays an amount in excess of the minimum fee set by the artist/copyright holder, in effect he/she will have bought an amnesty in the event of a legal dispute. If the amount donated is less than the minimum fee, the downloader is on their own.
However, there is some text, albeit in not particularly clear English, which suggests that downloaders have to pay the artist/rights holder before they download from otherwise illicit sources to get protection. Furthermore, there is no mention that downloaders are able to upload the music they download and be exempt from legal action, which means that this element of the service is useless for BitTorrent users. Indeed, the only way any copyright infringer is pursued on file-sharing networks is due to their uploading, so unless this so-called amnesty includes a license to distribute too (doubtful for 1 euro), it is completely useless.
MooZar are to be praised for trying to find some solution to the ongoing file-sharing wars, but one can't help being skeptical. The launch is coming soon, so it will be interesting to see what that brings. In the meantime, the marketing info for the service is available here (.pdf).
[via Numerama]
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/8sfELEOJvPI/ Post LinkMixFiend – A MixTape Torrent Tracker With Tons Of Releases
Posted on: February 14, 2010Several of our readers have asked us to post about a good private torrent tracker which has mixtapes so here it comes. MixFiend is one of the largest private communities when it comes to downloading Mixtape torrents. On this tracker, you can find music related to a number of different music genres such as Hip-Hop, RnB, Reggae, etc. Some of you may not have heard about MixFiend but it’s been online for several years – we even had an old review of this tracker, which was posted way back in 2008....
New Anti-Piracy Task Force Set To Pressure File-Sharers
Posted on: February 14, 2010During the last two years, Sweden has created a number of posts with responsibility for dealing with violations of intellectual property. In 2010 the resources dedicated by the authorities to this seemingly unwinnable battle are set to increase.
In the spring a new task force will go into operation dealing with file-sharing and other intellectual property violations.
The new unit will consist of nine specially trained investigators forming three groups operating out of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö, working under Paul Pinter, Stockholm County Police's National Coordinator in the Intellectual Property Crime division.
The team will also consist of two prosecutors, Frederick Ingblad and Henrik Rasmusson who were both involved in the nine recent raids against Direct Connect users.
Pinter, who previously worked as a computer crime and forensics investigator with the Stockholm County Police, said that the idea is to streamline law enforcement in this area. His role will be to act as coordinator between the various investigators and locations.
“The idea is that groups should only focus on his own territory, but it should also be able to operate nationally. In the case of raids this may facilitate a certain degree of coordination,” he told SvD.se.
Due to the distributed nature of the Internet and its users, Pinter said that nationwide collaboration will become increasingly important.
“In the case of such fraud, so much of that takes place over the Internet. It is difficult to know where a crime will fall and it's possible to be spread too thinly over many places,” he adds.
Swedish media are reporting that the chances of getting away with illicit file-sharing are set to decrease as a result of this new unit's work. From a current position of virtually zero that shouldn't be a particularly difficult task, but as pointed out this week by file-sharing researcher Daniel Westman, getting enough evidence to raid a BitTorrent user can be very tricky. Expect Direct Connect users to stay in the spotlight.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/jB2KQ79QyWE/ Post LinkOurDiSC – Private Tracker For Full R1, R3 DVD And Blu-Ray Disks
Posted on: February 13, 2010It’s been a while since we featured an untouched DVD/Blu Ray tracker on FILEnetworks. But our Chinese friends are here to help (and they sure has hell have a lot more BT trackers up their sleeve that we initially thought) – OurDiSC is a private BitTorrent tracker that specializes in untouched DVD (DVDR) and Blu-Ray (BD+) movies. This tracker should appeal to movie fans living in both English speaking countries as well as those living in Asian region. Why? Most of the content tracked by OurDiSC...
Warner: No More Ad-Supported Music Deals
Posted on: February 13, 2010
Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. recently stated that the company would not sign any new licensing agreements for ad-supported music.
"Free streaming services are clearly not net positive for the industry, and as far as Warner Music is concerned will not be licensed," Bronfman announced in a phone interview. He then stressed out the fact that, from his point of view, promotion of free music is definitely not a successful business strategy when the real goal is to convince customers to actually buy something.
Bronfman’s position comes as a surprise, considering the strategy of offering free music to boost sales has proved to be very effective in the past, and has been employed by music companies with positive results, including Warner Music Group.
According to Bronfman, the music industry should focus instead on encouraging subscription-based services provided by mobile phone providers, which use DRM-laden files. The chairman of the Warner Music Group also considers the closing of 360 deals a priority, to supply the company with revenue streams from merchandizing and additional profits from concerts.
However, to fully exploit these profit opportunities, it wouldn’t make sense to reduce the availability of free music, as both merchandizing and concert attendance mostly depend on bringing as much music to the public as possible.
The effort to force free music on the path to extinction, corroborated with an unrealistic price model for digital music sales could spell disaster for the industry on the long run. Rather than tap these unpromising directions, record labels and other music companies out there should better try to reassess the value of the music sold, as well as recognize the promotional benefits of free music and actually increase its availability.
(via AfterDawn)
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/12/warner-no-more-ad-supported-music-deals/ Post LinkFile-Sharing Legislation Not A Solution, Says Australian Minister
Posted on: February 13, 2010A few days ago we informed you about Australian ISP iiNet's victory against an alliance of movie and television studios.
Stephen Conroy
In recent comments about the case Communications minister Stephen Conroy said: "It's always disappointing when situations like this end up in court. I think that a mature approach by both the movie industry and the internet industry – sitting down, having a conversation and coming up with a code of practice – is the absolutely preferable outcome."
At the same time Conroy pointed out to the inefficiency in pursuing file sharers. He expressed his preference for a collaboration between the internet and entertainment industries which will prove much more fruitful for everybody.
"I've been trying for two years to encourage the sectors to have a dialogue and they've got themselves into a court battle," Conroy added. "But what I would still hope is that we can bring them together to sit down and settle their differences, create a code of practice that actually protects both parties."
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/10/file-sharing-legislation-is-not-a-solution-says-australian-minister/ Post LinkWunza 2.1 - Now A Ratio Free Movie Tracker
Posted on: February 13, 2010We’ve been keeping an eye on Wunza ever since it’s grand return a couple of weeks ago. After the impressive re-birth, Wunza has constantly been improving with new users being added, more content being uploaded and new members being recruited. The next major revision of the site dubbed Wunza 2.1 was recently rolled out and this version includes several new features, bug fixes and UI and design enhancements. One of the most anticipated and possibly the biggest change introduced in v2.1 is the...
Police Skip Millions Of BitTorrent Users On Evidence Issues
Posted on: February 13, 2010It all began on Tuesday 2nd February. Following investigations carried out by music industry group IFPI, Swedish police carried out raids on individuals said to be sharing between 9,000 and 17,000 music tracks.
Five different locations including Gothenburg, Docksta, Handen and Upplands Väsby were targeted, resulting in the arrest of a 28 year-old man believed to be a Direct Connect hub operator. Several others, all accused of copyright infringement offenses carried out via the hub, were questioned and had their equipment confiscated.
At the end of last week the police conducted more raids, targeting the alleged operator of a Direct Connect hub in Motala and a user in Örebro who reportedly later admitted making available 6,500 tracks via the hub.
Two days ago the police struck again, this time against an individual in Ronneby suspected of sharing around 6,000 tracks via a hub. According to the police, there is now an investigation underway against a university network.
Yesterday saw continued action with the ninth raid in little over a week. This time the location was Kista where the police seized a computer and questioned an individual who allegedly admitted making available around 7,500 files.
These raids throw up an interesting question.
While BitTorrent users could be sharing a limited amount of material with tens of thousands of others in a very public and open setting, the relatively reclusive DC user is admittedly often sharing a lot but within a very much user-limited environment. One could argue that the average DC user contributes far less when it comes to the spreading of copyright material.
But as we have learned, unlike their BitTorrent counterparts they are much more at risk of receiving a visit from the police. So why is that?
File-sharing researcher Daniel Westman told NT that proving mass infringement in order to get the police involved is difficult with BitTorrent, but with Direct Connect it's a much more simple affair.
“The DC technology allows the police to see everything that the user makes available and there may be thousands of files,” he explains.
Furthermore, for prosecutors to be interested in these cases there will need to be hard evidence available. Unlike in some civil cases, an IP-address and a few spreadsheets isn't going to be enough.
“The judgments we've seen so far also show that it is not enough to simply track a particular subscriber, but you will probably have to also do a search and examination of his computer,” says Westman.
“Conducting a search requires a certain seriousness of crime and that severity can be difficult to prove with BitTorrent,” he concludes.
Thus far, no Swedish BitTorrent user has attracted the attention of the police but although IFPI lawyer Magnus Mårtensson accepts that getting evidence against BitTorrent users is more complicated, he says it's not impossible.
“We will act even against users of BitTorrent in the future. We are looking right now on how best to collect evidence against BitTorrent users,” he explained.
In the meantime, actions against DC users are likely to continue, with Henrik Rasmusson at the Prosecutors Office promising more raids in “winter and spring.”
Ex-Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde says that some good will come out of these raids, as people become more interested in sharing mechanisms that move away from small private groups, and on to those enabling sharing with everyone on the Internet.
“They do not realize it, but they are only driving more people to The Pirate Bay,” he concludes.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/X1XSyzW1KKk/ Post LinkBitTorrent Tracker Loses Lengthy Legal Battle
Posted on: February 13, 2010
Founded in May 2005, Torrent.is was home to around 26,500 active users before the site was forced to go offline. The site only allowed Icelandic IPs to connect to the tracker and it was by far the largest and most famous private BitTorrent tracker in Iceland.
The local anti-piracy lobby had also started to take notice of the BitTorrent tracker's growing popularity and decided to take legal action. During November 2007, Svavar Kjarrval, the owner of the tracker, received a preliminary injunction which left him no other choice than to shut down the site.
While the majority of BitTorrent tracker owners would have given up when confronted with legal action, Svavar decided to put up a fight. “I’m going to fight this as far as I possibly can. The general public seems to be on our side,” he told TorrentFreak at the time, and he kept his word.
What followed was a lengthy legal battle that was fought in two rounds. In the first round Torrent.is came out as the winner at both the District Court and the Supreme Court. However, the local equivalent of the RIAA (STEF) simply started a new case based on new claims, so the whole circus started from scratch.
STEF claimed that Torrent.is was violating copyright law and the case went before the District Court again. The Icelandic tracker again came out victorious, but the legal bullying didn't stop there and STEF took the case to the Supreme Court hoping for a win.
Today the Supreme Court delivered its verdict, announcing Torrent.is had been found guilty. The owner of the site was ordered to pay legal fees of $3,350 and refrain from opening the site to the public.
Svavar informed TorrentFreak that this negative outcome marks the end of a seemingly endless legal battle. Although he is disappointed in the verdict, Svavar said that he simply cannot afford to appeal the case due to a lack of money.
It is expected that the outcome of this case will be used to bolster European anti-piracy outfits to pursue legal action against other BitTorrent trackers. In Iceland, Svavar thinks it will mean that file-sharers will increasingly go underground, if it has any effect at all.
“The battle might be lost but the file-sharing war has not ended,” Svavar concluded.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/RW9hqpnsZLI/ Post LinkFix BioShock 2 Save Issues, Crashes, Mouse Speed Problems, Enable AA & More
Posted on: February 12, 2010Mass Effect 2, STALKER : Call of Prypiat and now BioShock 2 – it’s a good season for PC gaming once again. BioShock 2, the sequel to 2007 hit first person shooter, is without a doubt one of the most anticipated games this year. As expected, the game has got mainly positive reviews and a lot of people seem to be having a blast playing this title. But of course, no game is perfect and Bioshock 2 is no exception – there are some minor annoyances with it, which some readers have been kind enough to...
UGA Security Analyst Fired For Extorting File-Sharer
Posted on: February 12, 2010Copyright infringement is big business. Lawyers, nefarious anti-piracy outfits, spammers and scam artists make millions off file-sharers every year. These practices continue to expand as some turn out to be more profitable than actually selling music or movies.
One of the more profitable schemes are the copyright infringement notices that include the option to settle the issue for a few hundred dollars or pounds. After the RIAA scored two major victories against individual file-sharers last year, many people are now eager to settle immediately.
Dorin Lucian Dehelean, security analyst at the University of Georgia responsible for forwarding copyright infringement notices to students and staff, saw an opportunity to make a few bucks off these infringement notices himself.
Instead of forwarding an RIAA notice to the person associated with an IP-address, Dehelean decided to contact a female student accused of sharing copyrighted material with an interesting proposition.
According to UGA campus police chief Jimmy Williamson, Dehelean “offered to make the situation go away in exchange for money.” He promised not to inform Judicial Programs, so the student in question would be free from any kind of disciplinary measures the University usually takes in similar cases.
The student in question didn't have any money and alerted a University employee who called in the police. The police decided to look into the case and sent over an undercover officer who went over to Dehelean, impersonating the student.
After Dehelean accepted the payment he was fired immediately and taken into custody for extortion practices. According to the campus police, Dehelean may have tried the same trick with other students, and they believe that at least one other student paid up.
“We are running down some leads that may lead us to other victims,” Williamson said. “We have information that makes us believe [Dehelean] might have had another transaction.”
If they're done with their investigation, it might be a good idea to look into the practices of some copyright holders, to discover if these fall into the extortion category as well.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/LQoNUz4P8rI/ Post LinkAvatar DVD Screener Leaks To BitTorrent
Posted on: February 12, 2010
Avatar has been an enormous success. The film has broken nearly all records at the box-office, and together with The Hurt Locker it was last night's big winner raking in nine Academy Award nominations.
James Cameron and the rest of the Avatar crew probably cracked open a few bottles of Champagne to celebrate, but today they will wake up with a serious hangover.
Only a few days after the nominations were announced, a DVD screener of Avatar (2D) appeared online. Before today, only a lower quality Telesync copy of the film has been available on BitTorrent and other file-sharing networks.
Ironically, the DVD screener that is now widely available online most likely leaked through one of the Academy Awards voters.
There is no doubt that Avatar will also score big in the list of most downloaded movies this year. The Telesync copy of the film that has been available for over a month was already downloaded by more than two million people.
It is expected that the DVD leak will easily double or even triple these figures. Avatar has been among the most searched for keywords on nearly every torrent site for more than a month already.
Twentieth Century Fox has been extra careful with sending out the DVD-screener of Avatar, as more Academy members received it mid January, just a few days before they had to vote. Although this did delay the leak, it couldn't be prevented.
How and if the DVD-screener will affect the box-office revenues is up for debate. The film has already grossed more than $2 billion worldwide, which is an absolute record despite the relatively high piracy rate. In fact, high piracy numbers are often an indicator of success at the box-office and vice versa.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/buaYC9loP70/ Post LinkBuffalo LinkStation Mini Offers Integrated BitTorrent Client
Posted on: February 12, 2010
Buffalo LinkStation Mini is a state of the art dual-drive network storage solution with an integrated BitTorrent client.
Unlike other similar media server solutions in the market, the latest product version of Buffalo’s LinkStation Mini is delivered with a built-in BitTorrent client to simplify the process of managing your P2P file sharing.
Currently available in black or white and both 500GB and 1TB storage sizes, LinkStation Mini provides support for high-speed DLNA sharing, with options going up to 40 Mbps. Through the means of a WebAccess portal, users have the possibility to easily access files saved on their network storage device via the Internet at any time, anywhere.
As the name suggests, the LinkStation Mini is highly portable, combining a unique, small-sized design with reliability and accessibility. The gadget is also very quiet, as it doesn’t require a cooling fan. Compared to previous models in the series, LinkStation Mini was engineered for maximized power efficiency, thus eliminating the inconvenience of a noisy heat reducing gear.
In an interview following the product’s release, Paul Hudson, Northern European sales director, Buffalo Technology, declared: "As the appetite for digital media continues to grow, consumers expect high-quality, high-definition content to replace traditional formats. The LinkStation Mini is an ideal way for people to store all their movies, music and photos; share it with friends and family and to use it in their homes on a computer, laptop or television."
Depending on available options, The LinkStation Mini has a price range from ?179.99 to ?249.99.
Features:
? High-speed processor provides file transfer rates of up to 40MB/s with enhanced performance
? Control access with group and user level security
? Direct copy of multimedia files from attached USB devices
? Supports Apple Bonjour
? Supports Active Directory
? Supports UPS connectivity via USB port
? Supports RAID 0/1
? In-built Print Server
? Auto-Sensing 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet port
? Silent, with no internal fan
? In-built DLNA CERTIFIED™ Server
? In-Built BitTorrent™ Client
? Fully integrates with iTunes
? WebAccess allows you to store, share and access files from any web browser via PC, Mac or iPhone
? Memeo™ backup software
(via Techdigest)
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/11/buffalo-linkstation-mini-offers-integrated-bittorrent-client/ Post LinkPolice Arrests Analyst at UGA for File Sharing Blackmail
Posted on: February 12, 2010
Encouraged by the RIAA's warning and notices some universities, like UGA, have applied various measures to combat file sharing in campuses – from policies against pirating music, to filtering programs against illegal downloading.
An employee of The University of Georgia whose job was to monitor and report students and faculty members who indulged in file sharing activities over the Internet was fired for trying to get money from students he caught illegally downloading content online.
UGA police arrested the 37-year-old security analyst earlier this week on a felony extortion charge after the man was denounced by one of the university's students whom he had tried to convince to pay in exchange for his silence – "All he was doing was (offering) to keep the information from going to Judicial Programs," said UGA police Chief Jimmy Williamson said.
For this sort of felony one can be sentenced up to 10 years in prison.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/10/police-arrests-analyst-at-uga-for-file-sharing-blackmail/ Post LinkMicrosoft Toughens Windows 7 Protection Against Piracy
Posted on: February 12, 2010
Microsoft recently announced that its development team is currently working on an update for Windows 7, aimed at fixing a series of flaws that counterfeiters could exploit to override the anti-piracy measures integrated in the operating system, CNet reports.
According to Joe Williams, general manager of Microsoft's Genuine Windows unit, in charge with the implementation of anti-counterfeiting solutions, The Windows Activation Technologies Update for Windows 7, which will be released in the coming week, will successfully close well over 70 forged activation codes. The update will establish connection with a server on a regular basis to verify if there are further hacks that need to be dealt with, while not disclosing any personal information about the user.
Microsoft set Feb. 16 to be the release date for the new update, and decided to give its customers the freedom to decide whether they install it through the Windows Update application or not. The company’s position regarding the character of the update is in direct contrast to its earlier approach against piracy.
With the official release of Windows Vista, Microsoft put in effect a series of harsh measures aimed at discouraging the promotion of non-genuine versions, one of which rigidly limited the functionality of the operating system. Over the course of time, mostly due to negative feedback received from many different categories of customers, Microsoft embraced a more relaxed attitude and reevaluated the restrictions associated with non-original copies of Windows software.
Microsoft’s change of perspective became visible with the first update to Vista, which replaced all restrictions with a message of notification that the version was not genuine. The company’s transition to a more flexible mentality regarding counterfeited versions of the Windows operating system was gradually perceived with following releases, Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows 7.
It appears that Microsoft is now mainly channeling its efforts towards educating customers about the underlying risks of owning non-original versions of Windows in an attempt to encourage official sales of the software product. Williams announced in an interview that many counterfeited versions of the Windows operating system are packed with malware, which raise serious security issues and can compromise the integrity of stored data.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/12/microsoft-toughens-windows-7-protection-against-piracy/ Post LinkYouTube Use Accountable for 10% of Mobile Data
Posted on: February 11, 2010Mobile traffic reports during the second semester of 2009 indicate that YouTube is responsible for utilizing a tenth of existing data transfer resources, similar to P2P file sharing.
A comprehensive study conducted by experts from Allot Communications, providers of network optimization for operators, reveals that mobile users favor streaming over HTTP. However, P2P traffic is closing in fast, accounting for the congestion of the most crowded five per cent of cells, with figures of up to 34 per cent, compared to about 12 per cent overall.
The study shows that 19 per cent of all mobile data worldwide took the direction of downloads through HTTP, while browsing was responsible for consuming 27 per cent of the data, and the streaming over HTTP application for 29 per cent of the total. VoIP and IP are somewhere at the bottom of the list, sharing a combined result of only three percent, while other applications account for the remaining three percent of the whole.
Results of the analysis from Allot Communications place YouTube and Facebook among mobile users’ favorite online resources. While YouTube videos account for 32 per cent of the overall streamed video, usage of Facebook is also very pronounced, registering an increase of 180 per cent over the course of last year.
Traffic on YouTube also increased by 90 per cent in 2009, by the end of the first semester. The news isn’t well received by network operators, aware of the fact that they need to find a solution to charge heavy users more for their bandwidth and also reduce P2P, to ensure that their profits won’t suffer.
Skype is the undisputed leader regarding VoIP traffic, with estimates of 77 per cent by volume. On the messaging level, however, the race is very close, with Yahoo registering a slight lead over Windows Live.
The data used by Allot Communications to produce the mentioned results was gathered from its own base of servers, which comprises over 180 million mobile subscribers all around the world. Although the results provided by the company are estimative, they generate a conclusive overall picture thanks to the extent of the sample used in the study.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/11/youtube-use-accountable-for-10-of-mobile-data/ Post LinkPirate Movie Privacy Case Set For The Supreme Court
Posted on: February 11, 2010
Released in 2008, Max Manus is a Norwegian World War II movie based on the real-life events of resistance fighter Max Manus. Created at a cost of NOK 55,000,000 it was the most expensive Norwegian film production to date.
Shortly after the movie's 19th December release date an illicit copy of the movie appeared on the Internet. According to producer John M. Jacobsen the recording was made in an empty theater, prompting suspicions that a projectionist was involved.
“I think this is totally reprehensible, and I wish we knew who is behind it,” Jacobsen told Norwegian media. “Anyway we will go after those who have done this quite mercilessly. There are ways to track these things down.”
An investigation was immediately launched by the Filmkameratene studio, to be handled by the Simonsen law firm with notorious pirate hunter Espen Tøndel at the helm. Technicians went to work, systematically going through every copy of the movie sent out to find a match – that meant checking 103 analog and 20 digital copies.
Their detective work paid off. Simonsen said they had not only tracked the correct copy but also identified the IP-address from where the movie was first uploaded to the Internet. They took the information to the police but were notified that the case would not be a priority for them. Simonsen responded by taking the case to the courts.
Simonsen, a law firm which since 2006 had held a license to monitor alleged pirates and collect their IP-addresses, demanded that the ISP connected with the IP-address hand over the identity of the subscriber, something it had thus far refused to do. The request had the support of the Norwegian telecoms authorities which in this case made a special exception to the country's Privacy Act, enabling the person's identity to be handed to a group other than the police – if the court agreed.
On May 5th 2009, Simonsen received the decision from the court but the verdict was kept a secret from the public. Espen Tøndel said this was to prevent the possibility of evidence being spoiled. This lack of transparency caused an uproar, with thousands of Internet citizens demanding to know the verdict in this important case. Many argued that if there was evidence to be spoiled, it would've been spoiled by now.
Today in 2010, the verdict is still a mystery to the public, but at least one of the parties is disappointed with the court's decision.
“I can confirm that the case is being appealed to the Supreme Court, but I can not confirm which of the parties has submitted the appeal, as that may indicate what the results were in the previous hearing,” said movie industry lawyer Rune Ljøstad.
The Supreme Court will now have to decide if it's acceptable for privately owned companies with financial interests in the outcome of a case to be given the power to obtain the identity of an Internet subscriber behind an IP-address, whether or not they committed the alleged offense.
Despite the leak, Max Manus did incredibly well in Norway, breaking all records. Its 2009 theater run yielded almost NOK 200 million across 1.16 million tickets and the DVD sold 400,000 copies in the same year. From recording a loss in 2008, movie company Filmkameratene made a profit in 2009.
“There is a dramatic change for the better for us in 2009,” said producer Sveinung Golimo. “So we are not now concerned about the future.”
Privacy campaigners will look toward the forthcoming Supreme Court decision before sharing in his optimism.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/yJ6Bgo-Li8o/ Post LinkSublight 2 Released – Desktop Subtitle Downloader
Posted on: February 11, 2010We’ve talked about Sublight before – personally it’s one of the best automatic subtitle downloader applications I’ve ever used. With Sublight around, finding subtitles for downloaded movies or TV episodes is a breeze. Just right click on the video file and hit find subtitles – Sublight will automatically search for and download subs in your preferred language. It would then place them in the correct directory and rename the files automatically so that the next time you play the video subtitles...
Game Developers Skeptical About Ubisoft’s New DRM
Posted on: February 11, 2010
Ubisoft has announced its new solution to prevent pirates from playing their games. The upcoming DRM will require gamers to be online when playing the game. If no Internet connection is available it means that the game wont work, period.
As with most DRM, Ubisoft's new anti-piracy solution needlessly hurts legitimate customers. Pirates will always find a way around the access restrictions and will be able to play the game offline without running into trouble. Because of this, Ubisoft's plans were welcomed with skepticism among fellow game developers.
Gaming magazine Develop has asked several gaming industry figures what they think about Ubisoft's new DRM. While some are against it and others showed support, the overall sentiment is that DRM itself is not going to stop piracy.
Gusto Games' Luke Maskell is the most outspoken of them all. “I’m firmly against Ubisoft’s announcement, I think it’s a huge violation of privacy and is only punishing the legitimate customer; the pirates won’t have to worry about being online as they’ll find a way around pretty sharpish,” he commented.
Maskell was not the only one with reservations though. Adrian Hirst, Managing Director at Weaseltron, also stressed that the danger of DRM is that the pirated copy turns into a more desirable product than the retail version.
“Previous draconian attempts at copy protection have only served to outrage our very customers. Copy protection that makes the cracked copy of the game more appealing to the customer than the genuine one threatens to turn them away from purchasing at all,” he said.
Most of the other gaming insiders that were interviewed agreed with this assessment. DRM will only hurt the game if legitimate customers have to face more restrictions than those who choose to download a copy illegally.
“I don’t believe that online DRM on it’s own will ever stop piracy – your game will simply have that functionality stripped out by various hacking groups,” Ben Ward of Bizarre Creations said. “The only way that DRM will be accepted by consumers is if it is delivered inside a service which brings tangible, real-world benefits with it.”
Others were less outspoken against Ubisoft's new DRM but everyone noted that it will be counter-effective if it's too obtrusive or cumbersome. To us at TorrentFreak, these different opinions clearly suggest that for a long time the digital entertainment industry has chosen the wrong path to counter piracy.
Instead of trying to add more restrictions to the products they sell to customers, they should add in extra features for those who pay for the product. UbiSoft actually made it half way already by adding several advantages for players who play online, but they're not quite there yet.
Logged in customers who play Ubisoft's new games online will be able to save it remotely, so they can continue playing the game on other PCs. Continuing along these lines the company could easily include other benefits and extra features for online players. If they then drop the requirement to play online, they might actually have a superior product compared to the pirated version.
In the end it's all about finding a way to frame or sell DRM as an advantage instead of a restriction.
The music streaming application Spotify is a great example of how ‘DRM' can be an advantage. Spotify users can only access music when they're logged in, which is the ultimate DRM. Still, no one has even brought this issue up because the service offers so many advantages over most other legitimate and illegitimate ways of enjoying music.
If those in the gaming and other digital entertainment industries start thinking in terms of adding benefits for paying customers instead of useless restrictions to keep pirates out, they would have a lot more satisfied customers. Perhaps even more importantly, they could sell a lot more products.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/e1iwaeXETHo/ Post Link3-D Films Safe from Pirates. For How Long?
Posted on: February 11, 2010Beyond their magnetism towards audience, the highly impressive special effects of James Cameron's 3-D epic "Avatar", are giving movie studios hope for a different type of special effect – an anti-piracy one.
Michael Peyser, a University of Southern California (USC) professor of production and executive producer of 2007's "U2 3D", thinks 3-D films will enjoy a peaceful and fruitful period, away from the danger of being pirated since "there's no commodity to it, nor can the files, even if they're copied, be viewed."
Avatar: The Movie that Has Changed the Face of Movies
Camcorders(allegedly accountable for up to 90 % of pirated new releases) are rather useless when it comes to illegaly recording 3-D films in the theatres because the images on such films consist of two projections of differently polarized light. Polarization lines up light waves so that they all vibrate at the same angle – "If you record a 3-D image with a handheld [camcorder], then you're just going to end up with a blurry image," pointed out Rick Heineman, a spokesman for 3-D technology company RealD, according to msnbc.com.
However, if right now we can't talk about a market for illegal copies of 3-D films (watching them home doesn't really make sense) in a not very distant future we could. Several companies like Sony, Panasonic and Samsung have announced their plans for 3-D-compatible TVs releases in 2010. This means a new market could open up for pirates but those 3-D effects remain problematic.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/11/3-d-films-safe-from-pirates-for-how-long/ Post LinkCourt Rejects IFPI Appeal For ISP To Block The Pirate Bay
Posted on: February 11, 2010In keeping with their new strategy of going after ISPs instead of end users, in March 2009 the IFPI, MPAA and several local movie studios began threatening Telenor, Norway’s largest ISP.
Their demands were simple enough – stop your customers from accessing The Pirate Bay voluntarily or we will make you do it by force.
Telenor boss Ragnar Kårhus refused to comply and the entertainment groups made good on their promise and took the ISP to court. In November the verdict was handed down. Although initially things looked promising for the studios, in the end it didn't go well.
The Asker and Bærum District Court clearly stated that Telenor was contributing to copyright infringement by providing infrastructure which allowed customers to access The Pirate Bay, and that it was also passively contributing due to its refusal to act when its services were used for illicit file-sharing.
But this wasn't enough. Since these contributory acts were not directed at specific customers or their actions, or the actions of the Pirate Bay itself, the court ruled that Telenor operated consistently, treating both legal and illegal use of their network in the same manner. This meant that Telenor acted within the law and the court refused to force the ISP to block The Pirate Bay.
Marte Thorsby of the IFPI insisted that Telenor was acting unlawfully and believing that the court had ruled incorrectly, Cato Power from music performing rights outfit, TONO, said they would take the case to appeal.
The Borgarting Court of Appeal has just announced it has rejected their appeal, as there is no basis under Norwegian law for the claim.
After the November ruling, Power said that it was possible that the Norwegian authorities had not implemented the EU Copyright Directive properly in 2005. This rejection by the Court of Appeal appears to confirm his fears.
“The Court of Appeal's decision confirms what we have previously stated, that the licensees in Norway are right to address this area,” he said in a statement.
Marte Thorsby for the IFPI said there is a need for clarification.
“The Court of Appeal wrote in its ruling that the limits for contributory responsibility are unclear and that the Culture Ministry must clarify this when they go through the copyright law again,” she said in a statement.
“This is, in other words, is a ‘no man's land' in current law, and that means people are free to facilitate illegal activities in the Norwegian [ISP] network,” she added.
The Ministry of Culture has already announced a review of the Copyright Act and there are suggestions that this current gray area will be clarified then.
In the meantime, although they insist they are currently examining their options, it is expected that the studios will take the case to the Supreme Court.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/uCuf5C3P7zI/ Post LinkACTA Falling Apart?
Posted on: February 10, 2010ACTA has been called many things over the years since it was first leaked online, but an all around failure was certainly not one of them until until the last few months.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been one of the biggest topics of discussion in the realm of internet user rights, intellectual property discussions and legal circles that deal with these issues. Early on, it was the ultra-secret agreement that virtually no one knew about until there was an explosion of publicity online when the documents leaked on various whistle blower sites including Wikileaks.
Things were never really the same since.
After initial leaks of draft documents, many quickly realized that this agreement was much more than just an agreement on stopping counterfeit handbags and bootlegging CDs, but rather something far more sinister and fears about the kind of harm it could do on personal freedoms were enormous.
Among the initial criticisms were that police officers would stop you and confiscate your property at the border for merely possessing a “digital storage device” (which can mean anything from a cell phone to a laptop or even an iPod). Another fear was that it would effectively export some of the more dangerous portions of the United States DMCA which has caused a lot of grief for innovators and researchers (i.e. just ask any open source developer about reverse engineering something for research purposes in the US). Then there was also the exporting of the three strikes law where entire households would be disconnected from the internet on nothing more than merely three accusations – no courts, no accountability, no opportunity to challenge any claims.
It was these and other claims which sparked a massive campaign to lift the veils of secrecy on this elusive and heavily redacted treaty through laws such as Freedom of Information Act Requests – legal procedures that are suppose to let citizens know what their own governments are up to. Many were horrified to discover that not only was the information not forthcoming, but governments were stonewalling any attempt to get any information. Some said it was for reasons of national security, others remained tight-lipped altogether. This certainly did not quell fears of the worst possibilities of this treaty.
Human rights and online rights organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation issued letter writing campaigns pressuring the government to release any official papers on the treaty, but to no avail. The European Union at one point refuted some of the suggestions made by the draft documents that leaked, but since there was no evidence to back up their position, it was extremely difficult to believe them.
Later on, KEI revealed that ACTA insiders were doing something to quell criticisms by allowing major corporations such as representatives from members of the RIAA and MPAA to have access to those documents. Later on, the MPAA even suggested at one point that criticisms that ACTA is so secret are little more than “distractions”.
ACTA had all the trademarks of a conspiracy theorists worst nightmare. Governments were co-operating together under the veil of secrecy away from their own citizens. Only mega corporations are allowed to part-take and a deal that stood outside the standard processes of lawmaking. While major corporations tried to speed up the process, the criticism just continued to mount. It was those criticisms that eventually started to have an impact on the internal negotiations.
It may be simply the way ACTA went about that might be fuelling a possible demise. We're talking about a law that even law-makers don't have access to it to even look at let alone have official authority to criticize or support it. Do politicians like it when there is a sense of them losing their own power to govern? Probably not. Chances are, when national politicians are involved, interesting things can start to happen. Canadian MPs have been voicing their concerns and one MP, NDP MP Charlie Angus, even recently launched his own Facebook account which calls for the end of the secrecy surrounding ACTA. In Europe, MEPs were raising concerns including recently Heidi Hautala. Late last year, US senators also raised concerns about ACTA.
Still, after all this criticism even from national politicians, it didn't seem like it was going to even phase the state of ACTA negotiations – or would they? A recent article in the New York Times suggested that “[e]ven some participants want to ease the secrecy that surrounds the process.”
“The Swedish government believes that we should release a consolidated text as soon as possible,” said Stefan Johansson, a Swedish Justice Ministry official who has been involved in the talks.
One defender of ACTA had some interesting comments as well:
“Given the importance of this agreement to our economy and to consumers, we must not allow ACTA to be derailed by a minority opposed to protecting the rights of artists, inventors and entrepreneurs,” Mark T. Esper, executive vice president of the Global Intellectual Property Center, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement.
The New York Times article alluded to that part of the problem also stems from several different countries wanting to do several different things – no huge surprise there. Still, flexibility within ACTA was noted:
“Our system allows for flexibility,” said one person with knowledge of the E.U. position, who insisted on anonymity because of nondisclosure agreements governing the talks. “The E.U. cannot accept an agreement that mandates a single solution.”
One might wonder if there's any form of unity within ACTA. One would think that if there is some sort of major problem happening within a world that requires an international agreement, then an agreement would say something like, “Look, here's a problem and here's where we are going to fix it.” If there was an asteroid about to crash in to the Earth, would the last thing one would want to hear is, “Well, countries can kind of do their own thing to solve this problem I guess.”?
So one thing one might ask after all of this is, “If countries can pretty much do whatever they want, then what's the point of ACTA to begin with?” Certainly, entities like the MPAA had high hopes about this agreement by hoping there would be an internet chapter that tackles non-commercial copyright infringement online, but not all countries subscribe to the notion that consumers should be arbitrarily cut off from the internet outside of any judicial oversight.
All in all, this might be a beginning sign that ACTA could end up being something very few even remotely predicted – a dud. It's all thanks to ongoing criticism, overwhelming and unprecedented secrecy and disunity from within the negotiations themselves (how long have they been going and what about the rumours that negotiations could be going in to 2011?) that might very well sink ACTA into irrelevancy. At there very least, there are some signs of this happening.
Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.
FLAC Share – Direct Download Lossless Music From RapidShare, MegaUpload & More
Posted on: February 10, 2010Here’s yet another addition to our DDL Forums section and hopefully a useful site for fans of lossless music. FLAC Share is a private community that offers verified one click hosting links (RapidShare, Megaupload, etc) to download English music albums encoded in lossless file formats such as FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec). The site indexes music related to a number of different genres such as Rock, Pop, Hip-Hop, Electronic, etc and is quite rich in content. Although you may have never heard...
Twitter Uses BitTorrent For Server Deployment
Posted on: February 10, 2010
Large scale web-services such as Twitter need thousands of servers to manage the flow of updates that are sent out by their millions of users. As a result, keeping all these servers updated with the latest data can be time and resource intensive.
To improve the deployment of files across their servers, Twitter is calling in the help of BitTorrent. With BitTorrent, Twitter is planning to distribute files faster and more efficiently, saving time and precious resources and improving the scalability of Twitter's operation.
Twitter's new project, codenamed ‘Murder', will not use the bandwidth of Twitter users. Instead, it will transform the site's servers into a large BitTorrent swarm that will distribute file updates using BitTorrent technology.
The setup is pretty straightforward. Murder uses a 'seeder' server where the new files will be distributed to thousands of ‘peer' servers.
Because all servers assist in the deployment of the files, it will only take a fraction of the time it would otherwise take when files are distributed from a central server. This server-to-server BitTorrent technology also explains the name ‘Murder' which is used to describe a flock of crows.
The Murder project is developed by Twitter's Larry Gadea and built based on the BitTornado BitTorrent client, which was the first client to implement web-seeding. The code is open to the public and licensed under the free software Apache License.
Eric Klinker, CEO of BitTorrent Inc. is excited about Twitter's adoption of BitTorrent. “We are thrilled to collaborate with them on this and hope that more Web Monsters out there look to this and other applications of BitTorrent in solving some of the hard problems of the Internet,” he said.
“The distributed nature of BitTorrent means an operation that once took many dozens of minutes, now happens in less than a dozen seconds. These efficiencies will reduce maintenance windows, site downtime and exposure to security vulnerabilities,” Klinker added. Although Klinker speaks about “collaboration” with Twitter it is not clear what role BitTorrent Inc. will play in the Murder project.
At this point it is still unclear when Murder will be implemented or released to the public but Twitter is expected to release more details on the upcoming project in the weeks to come.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/H4VJ6QMi4Zg/ Post LinkThe Pirate Bay To Be Censored in Italy, Again
Posted on: February 10, 2010The Pirate Bay was first ‘censored' in Italy in the summer of 2008, when ISPs were ordered to prevent millions of Italians from accessing the world's largest BitTorrent tracker.
The Pirate Bay chose to appeal the decision and eventually won the court case. The Court of Bergamo ruled that no foreign website can be censored for alleged copyright infringement and the block was lifted temporarily as the case was appealed once again.
A few weeks ago the Supreme Court reviewed the case and ruled that ISPs can be forced to block BitTorrent sites, even if they are not hosted in Italy or operated by Italian citizens. According to the decision by the Supreme Court, sites offering torrent files that link to copyrighted material are engaging in criminal activity.
This week the case once again appeared before the Court of Bergamo where it was decided that all Italian ISPs will have to deny their customers access to The Pirate Bay.
Pirate Bay lawyers Giovanni Battista Gallus, Giuseppe Campanelli and Francesco Micozzi told TorrentFreak that the Court followed the same reasoning as the Supreme Court, and deemed it unnecessary to bring the case before the European Court of Justice.
According to the two lawyers The Pirate Bay is still considering whether to appeal this decision or not, but that will not prevent or delay the block. “We don't know when Italian ISPs will begin to re-apply the Pirate Bay filters, but we think that this will happen very soon,” Micozzi commented.
Aside from appealing to the Supreme Court, the Pirate Bay's legal team is also considering bringing the case before the European Court of Justice.
It is doubtful that the verdict will have a strong impact on the piracy rate in Italy. The proposed DNS-filtering scheme can be easily bypassed by Pirate Bay users and there are hundreds of alternative torrent sites that can replace The Pirate Bay.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/GK--HePsl2s/ Post LinkSceneSound To Give Away Invites Via Twitter
Posted on: February 10, 2010Several months ago we talked about how BitTorrent trackers have embraced Twitter as an alternate communication medium. Lately, we’ve been seeing lots of trackers using Twitter not just for communication but for expansion and member recruitment as well. We saw TL giving away invite codes for their followers, TemplateP2P tweeting random invites, Jambands recruiting via Twitter DM and ScienceHD making invite apps public through the service (and the list goes on). SceneSound is the latest site to...
Symantec Points Its Finger at Kazaa Again
Posted on: February 10, 2010Unfunded adware accusations propagated by Symantec threaten to undermine the credibility of popular music subscription service Kazaa
Kazaa, now a legitimate online music subscription service that offers users access to an extensive database of licensed songs for a monthly subscription fee is still having difficulties in shedding its past reputation, shadowed by copyright related lawsuits and promotion of adware containing software.
Not long ago, Kazaa once again attracted suspicions on itself, this time from the company Symantec, which labeled the service’s desktop client application as high-risk adware. The questionable accusations weren’t well received by Brilliant Digital Entertainment, now in charge of operating Kazaa, which issued a special notice aimed at reassuring its costumers that the claims weren’t true.
According to Kazaa officials, Symantec’s security software has misidentified its desktop client as being high-risk not once, but twice over the course of a few weeks. The company’s representatives have all reasons to be upset, as Symantec’s accusations are tainting Kazaa’s public image, causing customers to turn away from the music subscription service.
The erroneous response from Symantec was apparently triggered by the files used for promoting advertisements as part of Kazaa’s music plug-in application, which the company claims to be risk-free. Kazaa supports the idea that like most anti-virus companies out there, Symantec favors an overzealous approach in its effort to unmask and pursue online piracy, approach that lures it into the trap of submitting false accusations following any suspicions of illegitimate activity, without proper factual investigation.
Kazaa brought the Spotify case into the picture, also wrongfully accused by Symantec of supporting high-risk applications. Following the incident, Symantec had to admit its mistake and later apologize on Twitter. Judging by this precedent, chances are Symantec will soon decide to also withdraw its claims against Kazaa and face the consequences of committing yet another error.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/09/symantec-points-its-finger-at-kazaa-again/ Post LinkEuropean Court Of Justice Reviews P2P Filtering Case
Posted on: February 09, 2010
The case of SABAM versus the Belgian Internet provider Tiscali has been dragging on for a few years already. In the time that passed, the Internet provider changed its name to Scarlet and was later acquired by Belgacom. Despite these changes the court battle with the Belgian music copyright lobby continues.
Through legal action the music industry outfit hopes to force the Internet provider to install a filtering mechanism on its network, so it can block the transfers of copyrighted works on file-sharing networks. In 2007, SABAM scored a victory as the court ruled that the ISP should stop illegal file-sharing using Audible Magic, a system that was recommended by the music industry.
This verdict was controversial for several reasons. Firstly, the ISP believed that it would be breaking the law when it started spying on its customers. Managing director Gert Post commented at the time: “This measure is nothing else than playing Big Brother on the Internet. If we don’t challenge it today, we leave the door open to permanent, and invisible and illegal, checks of personal data.”
Privacy was not the most urgent problem though, as implementing the filtering system also proved quite problematic. It turned out that the recommended ‘Audible Magic’ simply didn't work and neither did any of the alternative filtering systems. The ISP could not comply with the verdict even if it wanted to.
A lawyer for SABAM later admitted that they had misled the court over the effectiveness of Audible Magic, which prompted the judge in the case to reverse the ruling. The ISP could continue without having to take measures against illicit file-sharers until the appeal was heard.
Last week the Brussels Court of Appeal started on the case. But, instead of looking into the content of the dispute, it was referred to The European Court Of Justice which will look into some of the fundamental questions posed in the case.
In Europe, this is a landmark case that will define whether or not ISPs are responsible for copyright infringements committed by customers. In recent years the entertainment industry has continuously lobbied for copyright filters and the views of the European Court Of Justice will be pivotal in this regard.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/MsEe3Pa-tMA/ Post LinkWii Super Mario Bros. Pirate Settles for $1.3 Million
Posted on: February 09, 2010
The Federal Court in Australia has ordered a man from Queensland to pay Nintendo the equivalent of $1.3m in damages after he uploaded the Wii version of New Super Mario Bros. to the Internet in late 2009.
James Burt, a 24 year-old manager at games retailer Electronics Boutique, admitted uploading the game on November 6th, a week before its commercial release in Australia.
In a statement the Japanese games giant said it used a range of forensic techniques to track down the uploader and on 23rd November obtained a Federal Court search order. This was used to locate and seize items from Burt's property in Sinnamon Park, Queensland, to be used in evidence in the case against him.
As part of the investigation, Burt was also ordered to allow access using his passwords to social networking sites, email accounts and other websites he had used.
Australia traditionally lags behind the United States and Japan when it comes to media releases, but with the release of New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii the reverse was true, leading Nintendo to refer to the leak as a “global issue”.
“This legal proceeding was commenced to protect the creative rights and innovation of game developers, and to combat the growing international problem of Internet piracy,” the company said in a statement.
The game was a sure fire hit on BitTorrent. Data collected by TorrentFreak indicated that by December 27th 2009, the game had been downloaded 1,150,000 times.
Nevertheless, the game was still a huge commercial success. The game sold in excess of 10 million units in its first 2 months on sale – that's 1 in 6 of all Wii gamers buying a copy – making it the fastest-selling single-platform game ever.
It's unclear how Mr Burt will be able to pay this huge amount in damages. His salary at Electronics Boutique is unlikely to cover it – if he still has a job there.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/WAWBLxlAORE/ Post LinkTvgorge – Watch Full TV Episodes Online From Anywhere In The World
Posted on: February 09, 2010If you rely on the internet to watch TV shows you most probably use a BitTorrent tracker to fulfill your needs. However, online video streaming sites seem to be an equally popular medium among TV fanatics. One worrying factor is that largest free streaming sites such as Hulu, Fancast, etc don’t work outside the United States. It’s a little retarded as it’s the countries *outside* the US that would mostly benefit from such services. Why? Because in some regions (such as Sri Lanka), you don’t...
‘Ink’ – The Movie That Blew Up On BitTorrent
Posted on: February 09, 2010
Written and directed by Jamin Winans, Ink is an indie movie about a mercenary who appears in the dreams of a comatose 8 year old girl. As with most movies, one part of the story was particularly predictable. It was quickly ripped and ended up on BitTorrent.
Just over a week after becoming available online in early November 2009, Ink pushed into TorrentFreak's chart of top 10 most pirated movies with an incredible 400,000 downloads.
Unlike the majority of Hollywood movie bosses, the creators of Ink – Jamin and Kiowa Winans – decided to embrace their new-found pirate fans after the extra publicity pushed the movie to 16th place on IMDb’s movie meter and boosted DVD and Blu-ray sales. Kiowa wrote to TorrentFreak and said that the movie ending up on BitTorrent was “absolutely” the best thing that could've happened to it.
Now, Lars Sobiraj from German news outlet Gulli has interviewed Kiowa to see how things have progressed a couple of months on from the initial excitement.
As previously reported, Ink has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times, so just how many of those translated into real-world sales? Kiowa says that is really hard to put an exact figure on that – they haven't sold a DVD or Blu-ray for every download but sales have unquestionably gone up.
Money also came in from other routes too. As the movie gained popularity on BitTorrent, many Ink downloaders suggested that there should be a ‘donate' button on the movie's website so that fans could give money freely.
“We put that [donation link] up at the urging of some of the downloaders with the message ‘if you have watched Ink online for free and would like to contribute what you can, click here',” Kiowa explains.
“Guess what country has been the most generous? Germany! Germans have been twice as generous as Americans so... thank you Germany. We have also shipped a lot of Deluxe Bundle fan packs to Germany so Ink seems to be a big hit there.”
Gulli asked Kiowa if she felt the movie had fallen victim to piracy, a notion she strongly denies.
“I think to say victim is to characterize piracy as an all-together awful thing. The piracy of Ink is unquestionably responsible for its popularity around the world. Sure our trailers have been out for over a year and have had plenty of views outside the US, but we think that 70% of the illegal downloads are coming from outside of the US and we do get a good number of international buyers at our online store every day,” she explained.
Before Ink was pirated, the movie's IMDb rating was a lowly 12,991. As reported in our earlier article, it reached 16 and even moved up to the 14th position at one stage. Incredibly it has stayed as one of the top 200 movies in the world for the last two months, a feat that would have been impossible without the extra exposure.
Looking forward to future distribution models, Kiowa feels that everything will change during the next 10 years as people demand instant and simple access to media and their TVs and computers merge together into one device.
“That said, I'm not sure what the revenue model will be for films,” she notes. “Hollywood producers are quickly finding out that the instant films start circulating on DVD they will wind up on torrent sites.”
Kiowa broadly puts BitTorrent users into two camps – those who want media in an instant and those who want it for free. Noting that there are those who fall into both categories, she acknowledges the challenges that lie ahead in figuring out a way to make this situation bring revenue to the filmmakers.
“I think a reasonably-priced instant download the moment the movie becomes available would largely cure the piracy issue so we will see how it all shakes out over the next several years,” she adds.
As most observers are aware, many music and movie companies consider torrent sites as entities to be crushed and in recent years have set about a strategy to achieve that. Gulli asked Kiowa if she believes that is the correct strategy to deal with the problem.
While one could argue that non-physical digital formats such as MP3 are part of the reason that piracy has flourished in recent years, Kiowa feels that the invention of the iPod has helped to reduce piracy, largely through the existence of competition from one service – iTunes. The movie industry needs to catch up.
“Until the equivalent of the iPod is invented for film or long-format video files I think that piracy is going to be a huge battle ground, one in which I doubt Hollywood will win,” Kiowa predicts.
“There is always a smarter programmer out there that can move faster than bureaucracy. The film industry really needs to set its sights on overhauling its distribution system. Right now there are horrible things like region-coded DVDs that tie up a film's rights in various countries and this is what has made the film business plenty of money over the years.”
The industry needs to move its thinking to encompass global distribution, says Kiowa, not concentrate on pushing movies out to dozens of separate territories.
“We are going to keep all the rights to Ink and not give them away country-by-country so that when that iPod-for-movies emerges Ink can be the first film that debuts to the whole world,” she says, adding: “That is the hope anyway.”
Looking to the future, partner Jamin is currently working on scripts for two new films, one a sci-fi psychological thriller called ‘The Frame' and another a sci-fi fantasy called ‘Myth of Man'.
“For the time being we're just really happy that Ink is rolling along and gaining fans around the world. How ever people come to the film, we're just happy that they are watching it, Kiowa concludes.
“As Jamin likes to say, the battle of independent films is not piracy, it's obscurity. Hey – at least we're winning that one!”
The full interview conducted by Lars Sobiraj, is available here.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/BT8P3M3d-MY/ Post LinkInexpensive HD Video in 2010
Posted on: February 09, 2010My last piece for Zeropaid looked at the recently announced iPad specifically as a video device.? Does Apple's latest gadget have the potential to be a game changer in the video arena, as it may have in the mobile and publishing fields?? I have some serious doubts based on what we know about the iPad's hardware and software, which is ironic because 2010 is shaping up to be a very exciting year for mobile and low-cost video hardware outside of the iPad.? For users looking to watch high quality HD video on inexpensive and mobile devices the options are really beginning to open up significantly.
Intel's big mainstream chip product in early 2010 are the 1156 socket i3's and i5's also known as Clarkdale chips.? One of their most interesting features of the Clarkdales is the existence of an integrated graphics processor on the chips themselves.? Instead of requiring a separate graphics card, or even a separate graphics processor on the motherboard, the Clarkdales have a 45nm IGP built right onto the chip (which is confusedly actually an 32nm chip) that can handle mainstream video tasks, including the decoding of high definition h.264 streams.? You would not want to try and play graphics-intense video games without a separate GPU, but for the purpose of watching high quality video, relatively low cost PC's and laptops built around Clarkdale i3's and i5's will likely offer great video performance at good prices.
One of the major complaints users have about netbooks built on the Intel Atom chip is the difficulty that chip has for playing back video in a decent fashion at all, much less HD h.264 video.? A possible solution was the nVidia ION, a chipset platform that married Atom chips to relatively powerful GPU's, to create netbooks with the graphics horsepower necessary for high definition video.? Unfortunately, it seems that Intel and nVidia never really got on the same boat with ION, and the number of netbook devices available with ION has remained frustratingly low, and at somewhat less than ideal price points compared to other netbooks.? Recognizing the need for some kind of video solution for Atom powered netbooks moving forward, Intel partnered with Broadcom to create a decoding chip add-on that will allow their new Pine-Trail based netbooks with real HD video playback capabilities, but these Broadcom chips can actually be installed in many older Atom based netbooks, making them legitimate video devices for the first time.? And the price of add-on is surprisingly inexpensive, available now for around $60, so it will not raise the price of equipped netbooks significantly either.
Finally, it should be noted, that unlike the iPad, laptops with Clarkdale chips, and netbooks with the Broadcom video decoder, will be able to not only play back Flash video content, but they will also be able to hardware accelerate that decoding, making them excellent models for Hulu and other streaming service sites.? Consumers in 2010 are going to be offered a wider range of less expensive computing devices than ever before, regardless of what Apple does.
News From BzT, SqN, TMP & Demonoid Torrent Trackers
Posted on: February 09, 2010UPDATE: Article updated with Demonoid open registrations. See end of post for details. Here’s a quick news update from three different private torrent trackers; BZEE.TV (BzT), SqN and The Music Play (TMP). BzEE.TV, the brand new ratio free TV tracker we talked about sometime back, has once again opened signups after being closed for a while. Next, the ratio free music torrent tracker SqN which suffered from an extended downtime, returned much to the delight of it’s user base. In other...
SilverSeed Returns – Music Video Torrent Tracker
Posted on: February 08, 2010Back in November 2008, we ran an article on SilverSeed torrent tracker. SilverSeed (SS) was a private community that focused primarily on music video releases. Unfortunately, the site did not gain much popularity back then and eventually died due to lack of user activity. Now, nearly one and a half years later, SilverSeed has returned. This time around the site has a much better outlook and looks like it’s here to stay – there’s plenty of activity going on, lots of torrents are being uploaded...
TalkTalk Rises Awareness in WiFi Safety
Posted on: February 08, 2010Honoring the invitation from Channel 4 News to participate in a broadcast, security expert Matt Roburgh, member of the team behind Internet service provider TalkTalk, seized the opportunity to educate the public on WiFi safety and the threat posed by WiFi hacking.
Roburgh directed the discussion towards the limitations of today’s network safety solutions and hackers’ ability to constantly reinvent their methods of tackling existing security measures. Admitting he had also been a victim of WiFi hacking, the expert explained that although protection of WiFi connections with passwords is highly recommendable, this measure alone might not always be enough to block hacking attempts. To demonstrate WiFi hackers’ ingenuity, the news clip included footage of the improvised "Cantenna" device, one of the latest tools used for snatching users’ connections.
Contesting the approach adopted by the Government to battle online piracy, Roburgh pointed out to the flaws in the much-disputed “three strikes” policy, which could result in disconnecting the wrong people.
The security expert also informed the public about the latest methods used by downloaders to source copyrighted material and suggested that the Government should not limit their efforts to monitoring peer-to-peer use when it comes to fighting online piracy. Roburgh explained that there are many online piracy threats currently not properly addressed by the authorities, some in the form of dedicated ripping sites, which impede Internet service providers’ attempts to track copyright infringement. According to Roburgh, the Government should consider creating an effective strategy to block this kind of online resources.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/02/08/talktalk-rises-awareness-in-wifi-safety/ Post LinkJudge Jeopardizes Anti-Piracy Cash Operation
Posted on: February 08, 2010DigiProtect is a controversial anti-piracy company which also acts as a copyright holder in order to ease civil claims against alleged file-sharers in several countries across Europe. They track IP addresses on popular file-sharing networks, obtain the identities behind them and demand cash settlements.
A ruling by a court in Frankfurt on January 29th could now have put DigiProtect's “Turn Piracy Into Profit” mass-warning business model into jeopardy.
An individual was sent a letter by the lawyer Udo Kornmeier on behalf of DigiProtect. The letter contained accusations of illicit file-sharing including a customary cash payment demand of around 651 euros to cover legal costs based on an infringement claim of 10,000 euros. It was accompanied by a demand to pay a further 150 euros in order to acquire a license from the copyright holder for the material downloaded.
While the file-sharer didn't contest the 150 euro license fee, he refused to pay the 651 euros legal bill. DigiProtect's lawyers countered with an offer for him to pay 450 euros plus the 150 euros license fee. Again the file-sharer rejected the offer.
DigiProtect then went on to sue the man for 651.80 euros and the case went to court.
In court the judge asked DigiProtect and its lawyers to open up their books to show what legal costs were actually incurred (and paid) to perform legal actions against the file-sharer and send him the letters. Both DigiProtect and their lawyer refused to submit the information.
During the hearing the judge discovered that the relationship between DigiProtect and its lawyers was covered by an agreement similar to the one it had previously with lawyers Davenport Lyons for their UK operations. The details of that arrangement were leaked out last year by a disgruntled insider and revealed some embarrassing truths about the operation.
DigiProtect and its German lawyer refused to allow the agreement between them to be shown in court which meant that the true costs of pursuing the file-sharer remained unproven.
The judge said that even if DigiProtect had paid 651.80 euros to its lawyers to pursue the file-sharer, these cannot be considered as involuntary damages since DigiProtect paid this fee to its lawyer voluntarily. Therefore the only involuntary damages in this case was the 150 euros rights holder licensing fee.
Due to this lack of transparency, the judge decided that the file-sharer did not have to pay DigiProtect the claimed 651.80 euros legal action costs, only the 150 euros licensing fee.
Clearly, if the lawyers can't get their sizable share of the spoils in this “Turn Piracy Into Profit” operation, the whole business plan falls down. There was certainly no profit to be made from this file-sharer – time will tell if this effect ripples on to other cases.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/6697nVgHAJw/ Post LinkFreedom of Speech Censorship in Australia Coming to an End?
Posted on: February 08, 2010
The state of South Australia has snatched politicians’ promise that the highly disputed election law enacted on January 6 will be revoked.
The recently introduced law stipulates that anyone publishing politically oriented comments online during election periods must declare their identity or risk the prospect of paying a stinging fine. Applied only to bloggers and commenters, not to official online newspapers or magazines, the law has a pronounced discriminatory character, which is condemned by persons constricted by its terms.
Voted by politicians as a measure of protection against disparagement, the law has caused waves of discontentment among the persons it targeted, who consider it a serious blow to freedom of speech. AdelaideNow, one of many online resources affected by the ruling, decided to take a strong stance and confront its restrictions in the press.
"It's hard to imagine South Australia's Electoral Commissioner will prowl the Internet day after day during the election campaign policing such a ridiculous law," said a spokesperson from AdelaideNow in an editorial.
"Realistically and logically, there is no need. All blogs and comments published on AdelaideNow are moderated. Broadcasters monitor and moderate what is broadcast. All also abide by extensive laws that prevent the publication or broadcast of defamatory and other illegal material."
South Australia's Attorney General Michael Atkinson hurried to defend the ruling, responding during a radio broadcast that among other things, the ruling is aimed at discouraging political adversaries from la