DL then wrote to the individuals demanding several hundred pounds to make the threat of a lawsuit disappear. Some paid up, but many did not, and the only cases DL took to court were against those who didn’t defend themselves.

Generating revenue from porn proves controversial

Then the law firm overplayed its hand and got into bed with DigiProtect, the German piracy exploitation outfit with a catalog of hardcore porn titles to its name. The rights were signed over to the company by the copyright holders so that DigiProtect could use them to generate revenue – lots and lots of revenue.

After mountains of bad publicity, DL withdrew from this business model. In May this year, the exact same scheme reappeared with UK lawyers ACS:Law. TorrentFreak asked company owner Andrew Crossley about the connections between ACS and DL – his reply: “NONE”. However, it was crystal clear that there were many links, not least that staff from DL were now working at ACS:Law directly on these cases – known cyber-squatter Terence Tsang as one example.

We’ve known all along that if those threatened put up a spirited defense and refused to be cowed they were never taken to court, but we had no proof as to the mechanism employed. Then, out of nowhere, months ago someone from inside either Davenport Lyons or DigiProtect leaked lots of sensitive documents to German news outlet Gulli.

Having remained secret until now, the documents made very interesting reading and along with a helping hand from TorrentFreak and armed with the leaked personal details and email addresses of some of the letter recipients, Firebird77 at Gulli was able to confirm the authenticity of the documents.

Document 1 – Ranking alleged infringers in order to decide who to pursue

The first document reveals how the targets are ranked based on an estimation of how likely it is that they will pay up. Each alleged infringer has their details filled in on a form (download here from WikiLeaks). The document shows that despite the claims that an IP address alone is irrefutable evidence of an infringement and will lead to being taken to court, the reality is rather different.

Letter recipients are given a ranking based on many parameters. Does the law firm want to continue to pursue the person? What are the chances of success? A zero would mean “no action” up to ten which would mean the respondent is ripe for maximum pressure. One letter recipient hired Michael Coyle at Lawdit Solicitors to defend him and this earned him a “three”.

One part of the form is entitled “Circumstances” and this is a very surprising section indeed. Despite the “fact” that the law firms supposedly already have solid evidence of infringement that they say will lead to court action if recipients don’t comply, the section seems to show that they make their decisions on who to pursue based on the recipients’ personal circumstances.

One circumstance is labeled “impecuniosity”, i.e the letter recipient is flat broke. Another is whether the recipient is on state benefits – this is expected to be proven by way of copies of benefit books and/or letters. TorrentFreak has evidence that one gentleman was asked to prove that he was indeed disabled in order to make the claims go away. Other circumstances include whether the recipient is a pensioner, a student or a child.

One other circumstance is an eyebrow-raising “out of jurisdiction” (no rightful claim could be made the against the recipient) along with whether or not the individual was aware of that fact.

The form also lists possible defenses that recipients rely on, including the breach of their wireless router, a virus infected PC, not being at home when the infringement occurred, no knowledge of infringement or the possibility that someone else in the location carried out the infringement.

Document 2 – Letter from lawyer Dr Kornmeier from Kornmeier & Partner to Brian Miller at Davenport Lyons

The 14 page document (download from WikiLeaks) details the agreement DigiProtect enters into with rights holders in order to exploit their copyrights for profit.

Included is a section which confirms that the original rights holders sign over the rights to DigiProtect so that they are legally allowed to make the works (hardcore porn movies) publicly available on P2P networks such as BitTorrent. Dr Kornmeier asks: “Does this constitute any problem under UK law?”

According to page 2 of the letter, when the recipient of these letters pay up, the spoils are divided up as follows – 51% to DigiProtect, 37.5% to Davenport Lyons and 11% to DigiRights Solutions. The remaining pages detail the exact business arrangement along with a list of the hundreds of porn movies covered by the agreement.

TorrentFreak discussed the documents with staff at the excellent BeingThreatened.com, a site set up to support and inform those targeted by Davenport Lyons and ACS:Law in the UK.

“These documents confirm what we have long suspected,” they told us. “This scheme is not about getting justice for the rightsholders at all; it is there to fill the pockets of companies like DigiProtect by exploiting many innocent people. Everyone with an IP address has reason to be worried about becoming a victim of these exploitative practices, whether they use P2P networks or not.”

Indeed, John Stagliano, boss of porn company Evil Angel which also worked with DigiProtect, admitted to earning less than £50 from each infringement and told the BBC the scheme “…was completely misrepresented” to him.

Uk consumer magazine Which? earlier reported Davenport Lyons to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority for alleged “bullying”. It will be interesting to see how these documents develop that case.

Thus far just two documents have been made public. Stay tuned for further updates.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The legislation came into force on April 1st this year, and the very next day the Netnod Internet Exchange reported a significant drop of 30% in Swedish Internet traffic. This dramatic reduction in data transfers was attributed to file-sharers reigning in their activities on fears of being identified by anti-piracy companies.

In response to the news, Swedish Pirate Party Chairman Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak that most experts believed that the initial “scare effect” would wear off in time. They were absolutely right.

Current data from Netnod reveals that traffic levels in Sweden have not only returned to normal, pre-IPRED levels, but actually seem on track to surpass them. This increase is partly natural, but the relatively steep climb in recent months seems to suggest that P2P traffic is on the rise again.

While anti-piracy and copyright groups are working hard to clock up successes in getting governments to implement increasingly tougher laws to deal with online file-sharers, they too aren’t sitting back and accepting defeat in the face of these new challenges. Many are turning to services which enable them to hide their identities.

Recently the Cyber Norms sociological research project reported that 10% of Swedes aged between 15 and 25 were taking measures to neutralize online surveillance, with as many as 500,000 of their countrymen 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.

In this cat and mouse game, the cats have to spend millions of dollars and years of effort to achieve their aims of getting new legislation to protect their interests. However, in a crushing response, the mice spend just a few minutes in thought deciding how to spend a few dollars in order to instantly neutralize the threat.

As people around the world look forward to the festive season, it must seem like Christmas every day for VPN suppliers.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

In this short time span it was downloaded by more than 400,000 people on BitTorrent alone, earning it a spot in TorrentFreak’s chart of top 10 most pirated movies this week.

For most Hollywood bosses this is usually a trigger to start complaining about lost revenue, but the makers of Ink are welcoming their new pirate audience.

In an email to the followers of their newsletter, Jamin and Kiowa Winans say that they have “embraced the piracy” and are “just happy Ink is getting unprecedented exposure.” Thanks to the pirated copy their movie jumped to 16th place on IMDb’s movie meter, and according to the makers this increased popularity also boosted DVD and Blu-ray sales.

Who needs a hefty marketing budget to promote a movie (and merchandise) when they have BitTorrent? Sent out a few hours ago, here’s the mailing in full plus a follow up response from Kiowa.

Dear Fans and Friends,

Over the weekend something pretty extraordinary happened. Ink got ripped off. Someone bit torrented the movie (we knew this would happen) and they posted it on every pirate site out there. What we didn’t expect was that within 24 hours Ink would blow up. Ink became the number 1 most downloaded movie on several sites having been downloaded somewhere between 150,000 to 200,000 times as far as we can tell. Knowing there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it, we’ve embraced the piracy and are just happy Ink is getting unprecedented exposure.

As a result, Ink is now ranked #16 on IMDb’s movie meter and is currently one of the top 20 most popular movies in the world.

This all started as a result of the completely underground buzz that you’ve each helped us create. We’ve had no distributor, no real advertising and yet the word of mouth that you’ve generated has made the film blow up as soon as it became available worldwide. So many of you came to see the movie multiple times, bringing friends and family and many of you have bought the DVD and Blu-ray from us. All of this built up and built up and suddenly it exploded.

We don’t know exactly where this will all lead, but the exposure is unquestionably a positive thing.

Ink hits Netflix, Blockbuster, iTunes and many more tomorrow! Remember to get your signed copies, t-shirts and posters at the Ink Store.

Thank you so much for the constant love and support.

Jamin and Kiowa
Double Edge Films

And the follow up response we got from Kiowa, in reply to this article.

Dear Ernesto,

To say we are shocked by all this news and are digesting it rapidly is an understatement. We made this film in Denver, CO on a budget of $250,000 and have fought to bring it to 15 cities ourselves over the past ten months. Hollywood has claimed that they don’t know how to market the film or that it doesn’t have an audience, and what BitTorrent has done in the last four days is prove, unequivocally, that Hollywood is wrong.

So is this the best thing that could happen to our little film? Absolutely! There is no way this many people would know about the film otherwise, or that our IMDb MovieMeter would have shot up an astounding 81,000% from a few days of activity over the torrent sites. What Hollywood would calculate as lost dollars, we calculate as fans earned. Due to many suggestions from downloaders over the past few days we have established a Donate button on our Store page for people to contribute what they can. Thank you for posting that info.

We’re not looking to get rich, but would like to pay back our investors and the enormous amount of personal debt we’ve gone into making the film. We’re also not looking to make Hollywood films (Jamin has had several opportunities) and plan on continuing the march of making fiercely independent films. In order to do that we have to count on the power of the people, eyeballs all over the world and torrenters to throw our film a few bucks apiece. It’s the indie film model of the future and we appreciate each and every person who takes the time to watch our film. It appears we’re all rebels here… so let’s wave that flag proud.

Again, we are really floored that all of this is happening and that you’ve opened up the conversation!

All the best,

Kiowa K. Winans

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The case continued Friday in the Federal Court, with iiNet’s chief regulatory officer, Steve Dalby, taking the stand following his first appearance Thursday afternoon.

Yesterday, Dalby recalled having difficulty in understanding some of the terminology utilized by AFACT in the infringement notice spreadsheets it submitted to iiNet.

Dalby told AFACT barrister Tony Bannon that iiNet had told AFACT there was an issue with some items being unclear in the spreadsheets.

“There was no legend associated with this spreadsheet. I had to make an assumption. We asked AFACT for more information,” ITNews quotes Dalby as saying.

Bannon then criticized Dalby for not being specific and expecting AFACT to guess at which terms were not understood, but Dalby pointed out that he expected AFACT to contact the ISP for clarification.

Further discussion took place on the issue of IP addresses and how iiNet allocates them to customers. Time and again, Dalby explained that IP addresses are allocated to a customer account and they do not necessarily represent any particular computer that the customer may use.

In what is becoming a recurring theme, today Dalby told the court that iiNet had no intention of forwarding AFACT’s copyright infringement notices to its customers purely on their allegations.

“Our position was that we should not be doing AFACT’s work,” said Dalby. “If we had received authorization by way of court order, that would have changed our position.”

AFACT went on to tender a draft e-security code of practice from the Internet Industry Association (IIA) created earlier this year. It proposes that in future, ISPs could contact, and maybe even disconnect subscribers, who have malware-ridden computers which negatively affect networks. Despite Justice Cowdroy indicating that its relevance was peripheral to the case and wouldn’t but much use when he comes to make his decision, it was allowed.

Dalby said he believed that iiNet had not been involved in the draft and he was personally unfamiliar with it. CW reports that he had been quoted on the issue in the media, but Dalby said that it was a regular occurrence for the press to call him to comment on issues he was not yet familiar with, and in this particular case his comments were “neutral and non-committal”.

In September we reported that Australia’s Internet Industry Association (IIA) felt it had something to offer these court proceedings. IIA applied to be amicus curiae, a ‘friend of the court’, but AFACT objected, insisting the group would not be impartial and would favor iiNet.

The decision on whether this will be allowed or not has been delayed until next week.

In an indication that AFACT still objects to an IIA appearance, Bannon said that “….there’s a conceivable possibility they don’t want to add anything other than to say ‘hear, hear’,” apparently to the amusement of the court.

AFACT barristers are scheduled to make their closing statements next Monday afternoon.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

However, those who thought that these landmark cases would change public opinion towards file-sharing are wrong. In fact, not even the draconian anti-piracy legislation that went into effect in Sweden this spring could change social norms towards downloading movies and music without the permission of copyright holders.

These findings are the result of the Cyber Norms sociological research project carried out by Swedish researchers. They conducted survey interviews among 1,000 people between the ages of 15 and 25 to measure the strength of the social norms towards illegal file sharing. The aim was to find out whether the newly implemented anti-piracy legislation (IPRED) had been successful in reducing the gap between legal and social standards.

The findings of the surveys show that despite stronger anti-piracy legislation, the attitudes of young Swedes towards piracy haven’t changed.

“Despite the intensive efforts of the government during the six-month performance period, social support for copyright law in relation to file sharing is still at a record low. Young people in the survey do not feel any social pressure to refrain from interchange, whether from adults or peers,” researcher Måns Svensson comments.

Interestingly, the new law does seem to have an effect on the file-sharing habits of the younger Swedes. The percentage of people who say they don’t download any files illegally has increased from 22 percent in February to 39 percent in September. However, as the norms do not reflect the letter of the law it will be hard to maintain compliance, which could result in an increase in piracy in the months to come if people feel less threatened by possible punishments.

“In cases where the law is not supported by the social norms, it makes it extremely difficult to maintain compliance. Humans tend to follow social pressure rather than the letter of the law. With regard to intellectual property and copyright provisions, the Internet and file sharing technologies have created new conditions. In a short time, the social norms have developed in a direction that gives very little support of the law,” Svensson explained.

The study emphasizes that the law does not reflect what the general public considers to be legal, fair use, or even moral. Most people don’t feel that they’re doing anything wrong when they download an MP3 or share a movie, often because the legal alternatives are hard to find, full of DRM or simply overpriced.

So, as long as the entertainment industries fail to innovate and offer some real competition to piracy, the social norms wont change.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Then, a little later, Lynton hit back at his critics. He pointed to the leak of an unfinished copy of Wolverine, which appeared on the Internet (from a movie studio source who has never been identified) a month before its official release. As Techdirt pointed out, none of this hurt the movie.

Despite terrible reviews and this “devastating” leak, Wolverine still did very well at the box office, taking $35 million on its first day, beating both X:Men ($20.8m) and X2: X-Men United ($31.2m).

In a guest piece in The Times today, Lynton is complaining again. “Internet piracy means less money to make movies,” warns the headline.

Lynton begins by plugging Sony’s launch tomorrow of Michael Jackson’s This Is It, noting the importance of releasing it simultaneously worldwide.

“If Sony released it only in the US on Wednesday, by late Thursday it would be camcorded, uploaded on to the internet and available free to anyone with a broadband connection,” he said.

While absolutely correct, everyone also knows that the following is also true. The quality would be absolutely dire, Jackson’s singing would be punctuated by the rattling of candy packets and accompanied by a myriad of noisy cinema-goers singing their own version of his songs, probably all in D-Minor. The video would undoubtedly bring a whole new dimension to Black or White. People download this garbage but no-one enjoys it, and for good movies sales are not affected – but I digress.

“Online theft siphons billions of dollars out of the marketplace. That means less money to make movies. Projects get scaled back and others dropped. Some potential blockbusters won’t get made. Some new writers, actors and film-makers won’t get discovered,” writes Lynton, adding;

“Last year the leading Hollywood studios made 162 films — more than 40 fewer than in 2006, and the lowest number in a decade.”

But of course, just counting the “leading” studios doesn’t give the full picture. Even the MPAA’s own stats reveal a slightly different picture;

“The total number of films released domestically in 2008 was up 1.8%, to 610 films.”

So, if one casts the net slightly wider (yes, there is a world outside Universal, Warner, Paramount, Sony and Twentieth Century Fox), things look slightly different.

2004 Total Movies Released: 567 Total Combined Gross: $9,327,315,935
2005 Total Movies Released: 594 Total Combined Gross: $8,825,324,278
2006 Total Movies Released: 808 Total Combined Gross: $9,225,689,414
2007 Total Movies Released: 1022 Total Combined Gross: $9,665,661,126
2008 Total Movies Released: 1037 Total Combined Gross: $9,705,677,862
2009 Total Movies Released: 1177 Total Combined Gross: $7,596,626,766
(2009 figures incomplete, total movies scheduled to be released, gross to date)

Admittedly less money seems to be being made per movie, but that hasn’t resulted in less being made – movie releases are set to almost double from 2004 to 2009.

But in the end, Lynton is arguing that more piracy means that less money goes into the studios’ pockets. But in an Ars Technica piece ‘What piracy crisis? MPAA touts record box office for 2007‘, the stats speak for themselves;

“..data that shows the US box office doing its biggest year of business ever in 2007, growing 5.4 percent over 2006 and bringing in $9.63 billion.”

So maybe 2008 was a disaster? Not quite. In another Ars piece ‘What piracy? Movie biz sees record box office in 2008‘, the stats also speak loud and clear;

“Domestic film box offices broke multiple records this year [2008], grossing an estimated $9.78 billion.”

Even the MPAA’s own stats reveal that the “Worldwide box office reached another all-time high in 2008 at $28.1 billion, an increase of 5.2% over 2007.”

I’m absolutely no statistician, but I simply find Lynton’s claims confusing. I can’t imagine that I’m on my own.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The main problem is that most people just don’t understand what DHT is, what it does, and how it works. Not really a surprise since the documentation and even the Wikipedia page are filled with technical jargon, and no simple explanation.  Without that basic understanding confusion is inevitable. We did explain DHT in our jargon piece back in 2006 but after 3 years, we decide to cover it again.

The easiest way to think about DHT is to imagine it as a form of ’super tracker’, in some ways a lot like WinMX and Kazaa of old. A large ad-hoc network of peers pass on information requests about torrents without a central server, meaning no control or single point of failure. No information about the contents or even the names of torrents are passed around, making this legal and hard to shut down.

Myth: You must turn off DHT when you use private trackers.

Wrong — There is an element to a torrent that is called the ‘private flag’. It’s a small flag that marks to a client that the torrent is ‘private’ and disables any method of sharing peers (including DHT), except via the tracker. This flag also changes the hash, so peers on a non-flagged torrent could not connect to a flagged torrent in any case. Most private torrent sites check for the flag, and add it if missing when the torrent is initially uploaded to their site.

Myth: Certain clients leak DHT data and should be avoided.

Wrong (with one exception) — There are always going to be people that want control. When it comes to torrent sites (especially the private ones) they like to express their control through lists of clients you can and can’t use (a form of DRM) and sometimes give reasons to support this. An example would be this statement from a staff member at a private tracker:

Not all torrent clients respect the private flag. But if you are using a client like Vuze, uTorrent or similar if the private flag is on (set by the tracker) the DHT, peer exchange settings etc are ignored. However, if you are using something like BitComet, BitLord or their ilk they ignore the private flag so if you have DHT etc enabled it is going to be enabled no matter what.

This statement is completely false. All torrent clients that support DHT respect the flag. The flag is set by the torrent file, not the tracker (although the tracker can add the flag to the file, it’s still set by the torrent), and BitComet does NOT ignore the flag. The one exception is a single build of BitComet (0.60) that was available for 2 weeks at the end of 2005, and even then, was a fallback only if the tracker was unable to be contacted for a 30minute period. Bitlord is unable to leak to DHT, as it doesn’t use DHT at all.

If you see staff making claims like this, it’s a good indication that the staff is clueless, which might be an idea to leave that tracker. If they can’t get the basics right who knows when else is wrong. Of course, we ask those claiming other clients leak to let us know so we can test it.

Myth: You can be tracked by DHT / AntiP2P groups use DHT to find you

Unlikely — It’s much easier and simpler to use the tracker. Blocklists, used on your client and on the trackers, are generally ineffective and easily circumvented through the use of residential connections. Last year’s University of Washington study showed that they will send letters just based on tracker info.

Myth: DHT slows your system down

Generally not true — It can slow down your connection depending mainly on network hardware. The actual data used in running DHT is low, generally less than 1kilobyte a second. Some routers and modems, however, can have problems with DHT causing lockups and restarts if they run out of ram. This mostly happens with lower spec ‘home’ equipment (such as older Belkins, Netgears and D-links), or telco-provided hardware.

Myth: You need to connect to a tracker, before you can use DHT

Wrong — When DHT is enabled (certainly in uTorrent) it connects to a bootstrap node (such as router.utorrent.com or router.bittorrent.com for mainline, or dht.aelitis.com for Vuze) and uses that to enter the DHT ’swarm’. It’s handed a set of DHT nodes and uses that to build up a small group of connected nodes. Those nodes are then used to get peers. No tracker is required at any time.

Myth: When enabled, it sends usage data back to [insert company]

Wrong — This is another case of people not knowing what they’re talking about. Generally they’re misinterpreting the bootstrap node connection for their client.

When the demonoid tracker was finally resurrected last year, many of it’s torrents were still active thanks mainly to DHT. DHT with Peer Exchange (PEX) is a very powerful addition to the torrenting world, and allows torrents to stay active, irrespective of the trackers stability or even existence. Also, Azureus/Vuze users, despite having their own DHT system, can join in using a mainline DHT plugin.

Should you use DHT? Not if you only use private trackers, but if you use public ones and your network hardware can cope, then yes. It can help reduce tracker load. If you have a question about DHT not answered here, then again, let us know.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

However, none of this stopped the lobby groups, or the politicians looking to push for the ruling.

In the EU, the amendment, which would protect against 3-strikes laws by requiring due judicial process to occur before any sanction (such as cutting off Internet access), has been substantially watered down. Meanwhile, in France the Constitutional Court has ruled in favor of a slightly modified version of HADOPI – their legislation which includes a 3-strikes sanction.

On Tuesday, the Parliament gave up on Amendment 138, which had been voted on twice by the assembly, gaining a majority both times. The amendment was supposed to protect the rights of citizens from being treated as guilty upon the accusations of an industry group, and punished based on the same. It read;

Applying the principle that no restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end-users, without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities, notably in accordance with Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union on freedom of expression and information, save when public security is threatened in which case the ruling may be subsequent.

Instead, they are now considering a version which does not guarantee the right to an effective and timely judicial review.

Christian Engstrom, the Pirate Party’s MEP, commented on the amendment in his blog. He included the differences in text that have been made since Tuesday (bold denotes added text, strike-through indicates removed) in a meeting between three negotiators for the European Parliament and representatives for the Council of Ministers.

The changes included the removal of the judicial guarantee, that any measures should come only after a fair an impartial procedure (and should now just ‘respect’ such things), and the ACTA-like inclusion of ‘National Security’ clauses.

He summarized things simply, saying: “It shows utter contempt for Parliament by totally ignoring everything it says. The Council plans to bypass Parliament and once and for all prove that it is they who make the decisions, end of story.”

Meanwhile, France’s highest Constitutional Court has approved a slightly modified version of HADOPI. While initially blocked last September, a change to require a judge to sign off on the disconnection action (rather than the Agency itself) has meant it passed the Court. However, such court measures will be ‘fast tracked’ rather than given full judicial process, a situation the New York Times describes as ’similar to traffic violations’.

This has angered many, including (of course) the Pirate Party. Laurent Le Besnerais of the Parti Pirate and Pirate Party International called it “a huge blow for Internet Freedom.”

“In June 2009, this same Council declared that Internet access is a fundamental right which cannot be restricted without judicial process,” he told TorrentFreak. “Today, the council gives a judge the right and responsibility to pronounce a closure of Internet access to anyone suspected of having shared illegally. Furthermore, the suspect will have to prove his innocence, which creates a presumption of guilt.”

With the flip-flopping over these measures, it can only be seen as a greater boost for the European Pirate Parties in future elections. However, since much of the party works and draws its support online, there is the risk that members could start having their net connections cut off. With evidential standards so low, would it really be beyond the realms of possibility that political critics of these plans could end up being cut off at the say-so of those they oppose?

If all goes as planned the agency will be staffed next month, with letters starting in the new year, and terminations starting as soon as next summer. How long the law will stay once the innocent start being punished is harder to predict. As with IPRED, the people the law aims to deal with will just use seedboxes, VPNs, and open WiFi hotspots instead of their home connections.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

With no legal basis, ISPs were extremely reluctant to comply, so government-mandated talks on the issue came to an end. On this particular battle, at least for the time being, the Coalition had to concede defeat, but they weren’t about to give up on the war.

Since it could not force sanctions on the end users, the Coalition – which includes the likes of Promusicae and SGAE – began to focus on Spain’s BitTorrent sites. In his first public appearance as Coalition president, Aldo Olcese noted there were 200 of them, up from 70 in just a few months.

However, as we mentioned in our earlier report, the Coalition’s ability to deal with these sites in the current climate is limited. Spanish courts have ruled time and again that if profits aren’t made directly from copyright infringements, BitTorrent sites are perfectly legal. Add this to the Chief Prosecutor’s May 2006 official instruction that effectively decriminalized non-commercial file-sharing, and the Coalition have an even steeper mountain to climb.

According to a new report, yesterday the names of the 200 sites were handed to the Spanish industry minister following the presentation of a report called Parasites’ Business (video below in Spanish), which was made jointly by the Coalition and CoPeerRight, who claim to be the world’s ‘premier’ anti-piracy company.

Coalition president Olcese pointed out the difficulties his group faces, describing Spain as a “piracy paradise” with “no legal, civil or administrative measures in place to combat this problem.”

CoPeerRight then gave a presentation based on its own research which it says shows that the average Spanish pirate web site can earn an absolutely astonishing €1.5 million ($2.2 million) a year in revenue, this based on an average of 150,000 users each, with some of them drawing 4 million unique visitors in a single month.

However, as we highlighted earlier, pure BitTorrent and other similar ‘linking’ sites do not profit directly from infringements, which means they are entirely legal. The Coalition hopes to be instrumental in changing this position.

Last week the Spanish government announced the creation of a commission to consider legislation to deal with the issue of copyright infringement. Coalition president Olcese told Billboard that he believes “there is a correlation between the setting up of this commission, with the fact the Spain’s assumes the six-month presidency of the European Union next January 1, and with the improved relationship between the leaders of the Spanish and U.S. governments”.

Indeed, earlier this year a very impatient US government growing tired with what it sees as a total lack of inaction on the issue, said that part of Spain’s “priority action” to decrease online piracy should include an agreement between ISPs and copyright holders to prevent infringing content being available on the Internet – code for “3 strikes”, a measure that not even the US has implemented.

While that option has disappeared, last week saw Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero make his first visit to the White House in his six years in office – the first by a Spanish leader since the country’s 2004 Iraq pullout, an event which didn’t go down well with the US. Zapatero is now offering to assist with the closure of Guantanamo Bay, a sign that relations are beginning to warm.

It seems now that the only savior of the Coalition and its partners will be a change in the law, but Coalition president Olcese couldn’t resist mixing up terms in order to create the impression that the 200 BitTorrent sites are currently illegal.

“We gave the government last April our proposals to establish an official register of legal Web sites and act against illegal sites. When we meet the commission, we shall reiterate our position,” he said.

Illegal is not the same as unauthorized or unofficial, as much as the Coalition would like it to be so.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Now Di.se reports that music group IFPI has completed new research which it says reveals the extent of file-sharing penetration in this Scandinavian country of 9.2 million citizens.

The IFPI survey claims that some 40 percent of Swedes aged between 15 and 74 engage in illicit file-sharing every day, a statistic which IFPI chairman Louis Werner says is “a very high figure” but one which does not surprise him.

The 40 percent of this group equates to around 2.8 million people. The figure would be even higher, says IFPI, if it had also counted the under 15 year olds who regularly share files.

The higher-than-expected results are being put down to the method employed by IFPI to collect the data. It says that traditionally such surveys are carried out using the telephone, but this time the data was gathered via the web.

The results come nowhere near those revealed by the earlier research carried out by SIFO on behalf of TV operator Viasat – their conclusion was that only 11% of Swedes download copyright works using the Internet.

Currently Sweden had around 7.3 million Internet users in a population of over 9.2 million, a penetration of around 81%.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Although Collins owns the copyright to his own music, and all licensing deals for the track have expired, MySpace wouldn’t allow him to make the song available on his profile. Grace Maxwell, the manager and wife of Collins, wrote about the unpleasant surprise in a recent blog post.

“I was told Edwyn was attempting to breach a copyright and he was sent to the Orwellian MySpace copyright re-education page. Quite chilling, actually. I naturally blew my stack and wrote to MySpace on his behalf demanding to know who the hell was claiming copyright of Edwyn’s track?” she wrote.

Well, as it turns out, Warner Music were claiming the song as their own and MySpace bought into it without even checking. After she found out about this, Maxwell contacted one of Warner Music’s lawyers who promised to resolve the issue, but months have passed and MySpace is still not allowing the song to be uploaded.

“That is because MySpace are not equipped to deal with the notion that anyone other than a major can claim a copyright,” the manager writes, adding that the file-sharers are not the biggest ‘bootleggers’ – the record labels are.

Several big shot labels are still selling Collins’ track today even though their license to do so expired several years ago. This basically means that the labels are pirating his music, and making profit from these activities.

Trying to stop the labels is useless according to Collins’ manager. “Attempting to make them cease and desist would use up the rest of my life. Because this is what they do and what they’ve always done,” she writes.

There is still hope though, says Maxwell. Instead of abusing copyright for profit the music industry should work on new business models that allow fans to enjoy and discover unlimited music, while artists get their work heard by a larger audience.

“Now let’s get on with working out a wonderful new way for music lovers to enjoy music for free or for a small subscription that makes it legal and easy to hear ANYTHING and allows the artist to reap the rewards of such freedom of access. Viva la revolucion!”

In the meantime Collins can put the song on The Pirate Bay, isoHunt or Mininova and link to it on MySpace.

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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.

That was not the end of matter, though. The case was taken to the Supreme Court, which reversed the decision of the Tribunal of Bergamo yesterday, meaning that The Pirate Bay might be blocked by Italian ISPs after all.

The Supreme Court has not yet detailed its decision, but Pirate Bay lawyers Giovanni Battista Gallus, Giuseppe Campanelli and Francesco Micozzi informed TorrentFreak that the site will remain accessible for now.

“There will be another hearing before the Court of Bergamo,” they told us, “which will have to decide again whether to block The Pirate Bay in Italy or not.”

“We will go again before the Court of Bergamo, where we will have ample grounds to defend The Pirate Bay,” the lawyers noted, adding “And we could even appeal the new decision before the Supreme Court.”

This most recent decision is a setback for the Pirate Bay, but as always the free publicity will only bring in more visitors to the site. When the tracker was blocked last year it only took a few hours before people started to share workarounds to regain access to the site, and the number of Italian visitors actually grew 5 percent.

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On April 1st this year the new law became active and immediately there was a reported dramatic drop in Internet traffic, which many believed could be attributed to file-sharers becoming more cautious about being identified by anti-piracy and entertainment companies.

While many forecasted that file-sharing lawsuits would quickly follow, in fact the reverse is true. So far, no action has been taken against music pirates at all – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t coming, it is, albeit somewhat later than expected.

But at this point and in the absence of lawsuits, how has the introduction and awareness of IPRED affected file-sharing activities?

According to new research carried out by SIFO on behalf of TV operator Viasat – who earlier this year said that although affected by piracy would not use the new legislation at all – 11 % of Swedes continue to download copyright works using the Internet.

When split between the sexes, 16% of men said they are continuing to download compared to 5% of women.

Of the traditionally download-intensive 15 to 29 year olds, 25% of those questioned said they are carrying on their activities regardless of the law.

While 76% of the file-sharers questioned said that they aren’t intimidated by IPRED, 16% of all respondents said they had stopped illicit downloading completely.

Overall, a significant 46% said that they could be encouraged to stop illicit sharing if provided with better legal alternatives. Just over a quarter of respondents said they are happy with existing ‘legitimate’ services through which they can buy music and movies.

“We need more good, reasonably priced legal alternatives to prevent illegal downloading,” said Viasat CEO Hans Skarplöth. “Only 27 percent think that the alternatives are good enough today. The commercial operators must therefore act more vigorously to attract more people to become legal while we must become better at information about the options that actually exist.”

Bonver, a company providing bricks and mortar stores with DVD movies, said that since the introduction of IPRED, rental has increased by a massive 40%.

According to CEO Gerard Versteegh, online movie downloads have benefited the most, with a reported increase of 115%.

These digital sales figures should be interpreted with caution though. Movie downloads are on the rise worldwide and the reported 115% increase might very well be attributed to other factors.

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Petter said he fears that the anti-piracy process could cost ISPs a staggering £365m a year – £165m a year more than the £200m the BPI says the industry will lose to online music piracy in 2009. The BT boss went on to label the BPI’s losses assessment as “melodramatic.”

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of BPI, is now hitting back, claiming that Petter has exaggerated his figures too.

Taylor also claims that since February the group’s anti-piracy tracking company (most probably Denmark-based DtecNet) has harvested the IP addresses of 100,000 BT Broadband customers alleged to have been engaged in illicit file-sharing.

The BPI CEO, who says that his group handed the information over to BT, notes that the ISP has done nothing about the problem.

BT says that if the industry wants action against these individuals it should prosecute them, but BPI said that the ISP is shirking its responsibilities.

“It’s shameful for a company like BT to know that a high percentage of the traffic it carries is illegal material but do nothing,” Taylor told The Mirror. “If you operate a commercial service and know it is being used to break the law, taking steps to ensure it is used legally is a cost of doing business.”

However, Taylor’s comments don’t really hold water. BT has hosted more communications in its past and present forms than any other company in UK history, and for many years held a monopoly on telephone communications. BT and every other communications company provides infrastructure which people can use to break all kinds of laws and so far, no-one apart from the entertainment industries feels that carriers should take the responsibility for the actions of others.

The British music industry frustrations are only too clear. They don’t want to take the path of the RIAA and start taking legal action against alleged sharers, so are pressuring ISPs to take action against them instead. ISPs don’t want to be judge, jury and executioner, particularly since there is no legal basis to do so.

So now all eyes are now on the government which will soon have to decide which action to take. Smart money right now is on throttling the connection speeds of file-sharers as an absolute last resort, but this won’t be enough for the music industry, who want outright disconnection or at least a temporary suspension of Internet access.

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However, just a few hours after we posted the article, Lily explained that she’s not a pirate but simply didn’t know any better.

“I made those mixtapes 5 years ago, I didn’t have a knowledge of the workings of the music industry back then…,” she responded.

What she probably meant to say is that she had no clue about copyright before her income depended on it. Yet, she believes that every other person on this planet should know better, or get their Internet access cut off. Way to go girl.

In fact, the old Lily from 5 years ago is not too different from the hundreds and thousands of casual file-sharers today. Copyright is a complex issue and the boundaries between right/wrong and illegal/legal are not always that clear. Instead of waging a war against file-sharers on the blog she could have tried to pass her knowledge about copyright on to the public.

She chose to make it a soundboard for frustrated artists instead, which only resulted in negative reactions from the public up to a point where Lily couldn’t take it anymore. Indeed, TorrentFreak read one posting on the site which had in excess of 100 comments – only 4 of which supported the singer’s position.

“I’ve shut down the blog, the abuse was getting too much,” she explained on Twitter a few minutes after she announced the end of her legendary music career.

Just before she pulled the blog she wrote “I will not make another record,” adding “The days of me making money from recording music has been and gone as far as I’m concerned, so I don’t stand to profit from [anti-piracy] legislation.”

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the debate Lily inflamed over the last week. While there seemed to be an endless stream of rich musicians willing to complain on behalf of bands we’ve never heard of with “we aren’t suffering, they are” statements, there were also huge numbers of music fans who were more than a little reluctant to be lectured by well-off superstars on the issue.

But most prominent were those vehemently opposed to UK plans to disconnect alleged infringers from the Internet. The abuse that Lily spoke of on her blog largely wasn’t directed at her, but at these plans and her support for them. Think again Mr Mandelson.

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Yesterday, speaking with the UK’s The Mirror, John Petter, boss of ISP BT’s consumer division, said that measures to tackle Internet piracy will be costly.

Noting that ISP profit margins are already small, Petter said he fears that the process could cost ISPs a staggering £365m a year.

However, according to Jupiter Reseach, whose figures the BPI uses when trying to convince others how much money they lose, the British music industry will lose £200m worth of business to online piracy in 2009.

If the BPI’s ‘losses’ figures are to be believed (and we have to go along with the ridiculous premise of 1 download = 1 lost sale in order to do so), saving £200m worth of business will end up costing ISPs almost double that amount.

“Their [music industry] claims are melodramatic and assume people would buy all the music that is illegally downloaded, which is nonsense,” said Petter, adding that laws are already in place to deal with illicit file-sharing, but the industry doesn’t want to use those particular ones because it would hurt their public image.

Petter’s final point is possibly the most important one. He believes that the war against file-sharing will lead to a technological arms race as Internet users find new ways to hide their activities.

Indeed, by spending a measly £3.00 per month on a cheapo VPN service from the likes of SwissVPN, it’s possible for any user to tunnel right out of the UK and no-one in the country will have a clue what they are doing on their connection. Not the BPI, not ISPs, not the government.

That’s around 10p per day to defeat a £1m a day system that isn’t even in place yet. Something doesn’t add up.

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After being held in custody for a day, the 33 year old from Västerås was later released on charges of copyright infringement. During his interrogation he said that he had no knowledge of the movies, instead believing the server to contain only games.

The police who carried out the raid were acting on a tip from Sweden’s Anti-Piracy Bureau (Antipiratbyrån) who said they believe the man could be part of a larger network, probably within the notorious ‘warez scene’, although at this stage no other arrests have been made. Antipiratbyrån also says the server has links to another investigation carried out in Norway.

Antipiratbyrån lawyer Henrik Pontén is now claiming that the server contained around 10,000 movies totaling some 88 terabytes – a huge amount to be contained on a single server.

“We regard the man as one of the leaders in the warez scene,” said Pontén, adding, “A number of respected release groups were able to connect to the server.”

Pontén is celebrating the seizure as the biggest ever in Sweden and “probably one of the largest in Europe.”

Antipiratbyrån feels that the haul will seriously disrupt material becoming available on The Pirate Bay. Similar claims have been made in the past but have proven hollow.

The copies of the movies on this server will all have been copied from other places, and they too will be copied and distributed via other means. They will appear via The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites in the unlikely event they haven’t already – and that’s guaranteed.

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James Monaghan from the company has recently taken part in the BERR consultation on file-sharing so has been watching this week’s developments closely. The government has set a deadline for responses to its plans (which include disconnecting alleged file-sharers from the Internet) of 29th September and, like many others, James has responded to the new statement by sending his thoughts in to the consultation. His feelings will resonate with many TorrentFreak readers. Here they are in full;

Monaghan Media Response To Latest BERR Statement

There are an estimated 7 million file-sharers (your figures) in the UK, and you want to reduce that number by 70%. 70% is 4.9 million. A fair trial is fundamental to democracy. To fairly prosecute 4.9 million citizens is an optimistic suggestion when currently Her Majesty’s Court System holds 200,000 criminal cases per year. This would suggest it is going to take 25 years to reduce file-sharing by 70%. This is only dealing with the 70% of today’s file-sharing with no regard to the expected increase of file-sharing. Research suggests that the number of file-sharers increases every day, 63% of people aged 14-24 now admit file-sharing, with 83% of those file-sharing every day.

To prosecute 4.9million people you will also need evidence. No evidence exists. Anywhere.

The ‘evidence’ championed by the failing sector of the media industry – the physical distribution sector – has been proven time and time again to be incredibly flawed. I refer here to the elderly couple who the copyright industry began legal proceedings against for downloading hardcore gay nazi pornographic film ‘Army Fuckers’ (1) among others. I also refer to the law firm Davenport-Lyons, who sent out 15,000 letters telling people to pay a small ‘fine’ (usually about £600) and they’d make a lawsuit against them (for file-sharing) go away. This is what is known as ‘extortion’.

Luckily for the consumers, and all of those of us who enjoy freedom from criminals, Davenport-Lyons were quickly picked up by BBC’s Watchdog program, and promptly disappeared.

I note though, that in today’s (25th August 2009) response, you don’t mention a fair trial. In fact you don’t mention any opportunity for those accused with this flawed and faulty evidence to defend themselves. Which rather gives the impression that there will be no opportunity for the accused to defend themselves. What you do say is this:

“…the previous proposals, whilst robust, would take an unacceptable amount of time to complete in a situation that calls for urgent action…”

So what you’ve stated, is that it is impossible for your draconian anti-file-sharing measures to be implemented fairly. Which is correct. What this means, is that this route of anti-file-sharing legislation, the ‘criminalise-7-million-of-your-citizens’ route is wholly unfeasible, impossible to implement without massive cost to the tax-payer, and impossible to implement without massive damage to the progress of the UK’s creative industries. What this does not mean is that instead of fair trials and the assumption that the accused are innocent until proven guilty, everyone should be presumed guilty until they are proven innocent. This is perverse as the accused would not then have the opportunity to be proven innocent.

In my previous contribution to this consultation, I briefly touched upon the fact that the industry has never been able to show any loss, financial or otherwise, has been caused by file-sharing. I’ve gone into a little more detail here, which shows, with numbers, evidence, and references, (rather than the usual hearsay provided by the industry) to show that there isn’t a financial loss to any of the most downloaded films this year (so far).

You’ll note that all of the top ten most downloaded films so far this year (3) are all incredible commercial successes, each making hundreds of millions of pounds. Watchmen, the most downloaded film with 16.9 million illegal downloads, still made $185,248,060. How can anyone argue that file-sharing has caused it a financial loss? Benjamin Button was the second most downloaded film so far, being downloaded 13.1 million times illegally. It made $332,860,689. A financial loss? I think not.

What we are seeing here, is the end of one type of business: the physical distribution of digital products. We are in a world where DVDs are old technology, in less than ten years Blu-ray disks will go the same way as LPs, as tape cassettes, as VHS tapes, and as DVDs. The internet however, has outlived the DVD. And it will outlive the Blu-ray disk. And it will outlive whatever format ‘succeeds’ the Blu-ray disk. The internet is here to stay. What we are seeing in the Creative Industry is a very small sector (distribution), which makes massive money from a system which is made redundant by the internet.

It is not the responsibility of the government, of the ISPs to prop up a failing business. If a business is failing, it is the responsibility of that business to look at itself, at its actions and rethink its operations in order to save itself.

It is wholly unfeasible to enforce any rule against filesharers, and impossible, literally impossible to enforce according to law.

I reiterate the statement I made in my first contribution to this consultation, the majority of my audiences watch my films over the BitTorrent system, a system so revolutionarily brilliant that it means I, an independent film-maker, can distribute a film in full High Definition to hundreds of millions of viewers with absolutely no cost incurred to me, where normally global film distribution costs several tens of millions of pounds. I think it is acceptable to say then, that my company and I are at the forefront of the industry.

As someone who uses file-sharing systems, not only to gain access to media which I never could’ve before, but also to distribute my own contributions to the UK’s Creative Industry, I am utterly shocked and appalled by the lengths to which your government will go to make my audiences, my peers and myself criminals.

This is not the end of the creative industry. I can say this with great confidence, as someone working in the industry. The industry is currently undergoing a change, a natural change, a change that it must undergo. Although this is not the end of the creative industry, it is the end of a disgusting sector of the industry which has been a parasite on the industry for the past half-century, milking it for as much money as it can, promoting false inflation of the rest of the industry only to increase its own profits.

The criminals here are not the teenagers downloading films and music, but the global corporations that extort money from artists and consumers alike, and who operate in a manner not unfamiliar with sinister global criminal networks.

It is the remit of democratically elected Government to protect the citizens, film-makers, and business-owners from the failing business model which threatens freedom, civil liberty, and creative business’ economic future.

Finally, I take this quote from your statement today:

“…As ever we would need to ensure any such measure fully complied with both UK and EU legislation…”

Disconnecting people from the internet does not fully comply with EU legislation. In fact it directly contravenes EU legislation. I am referring to amendment 138/46 which was adopted on the 6th May 2009 in response to French attempts to implement a system almost exactly the same as the one proposed here. A system which was declared unconstitutional by the French High Court. You will be aware that amendment 138/46 declared that access to the internet was a fundamental human right.

Not only do your proposals directly contravene European Law, but the certainty of wrongful sanctions being taken against citizens opens the government up to legal action. The fact that cutting off an entire household’s internet punishes everyone in that household and not just the ‘accused file-sharer’ is near-certain to breach the government’s ‘Every Child Matters’ directive where children are punished for others’ actions. The probability of cutting off the internet of those who need the internet to survive, the long-term sick, for example, or the disabled, further opens up the government to attack.

Is this the route that my government wants to pursue? Or should the government perhaps listen to its’ citizens’ outrage and stop neglecting them in favour of the power and massive wealth offered by the global corporations who’s only motivation is furthering said power and wealth?

Yours faithfully,
James Monaghan

Monaghan Media

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On the one hand users sometimes complain about slow download speeds, but most of all, Internet providers are not always happy with the heavy load BitTorrent transfers put on their networks.

The Swedish based company Peerialism hopes to tackle these problems and make BitTorrent future proof. Aside from their issues with GGF, they are currently working on the release of a new Open Source BitTorrent tracker based on the OpenTracker software currently in use at most of the larger public BitTorrent trackers.

Andreas Dahlström, the CTO and founder of the company explained to TorrentFreak that the key to solving BitTorrent’s main problems is to make the tracker location aware, so that peers first try to share files with other peers that are closer to them.

“In standard BitTorrent the tracker chooses a totally random number of peers for you. There are some good reasons for this since random actually gives some nice and robust network properties but in many cases this will force you to download for peers far away from you,” Dahlström said.

“This has two effects: slower download speed and unnecessary network traffic for the ISPs. And since BitTorrent traffic causes so much problems for ISPs many use traffic shaping, causing even slower download speeds,” he explained.

The solution to this problem according to Dahlström is to make the tracker select peers more intelligently, based on their geographical location. The initial tests of this new methodology are very promising, as they result in faster download speeds for BitTorrent users, and less traffic going outside the ISPs network.

“We have built p2p algorithms which actually map the entire Internet. We can use this to let a BitTorrent Tracker assign you to the peers closest to you. The effect for the downloader is 30-150% faster downloads and 20-50% less traffic for the ISPs,” Dahlström told TorrentFreak.

This sounds like a classic win-win situation. If it’s implemented by most of the leading BitTorrent trackers, ISPs will have less trouble handling BitTorrent traffic and thus less incentive to slow it down. On the other hand, BitTorrent users will see a boost in their download speeds.

There is a minor drawback to the plan though. The new trackers will use more CPU and memory, which means that more power is required than with the current setup. This means that the people who run the trackers will have to invest in new hardware.

“We work hard to together with Ergeist [the creator of the original OpenTracker software] to minimize the extra load,” Dahlström said. “We do believe the extra resources are well spent compared to the improved download speeds and less ISP traffic.”

If Peerialism can deliver what they are promising, their new tracker will be one of the most significant advancements to BitTorrent in years. Although they are not the first to come up with the idea of location based peer allocation, some might remember P4P, the solution they offer is superior since it requires no changes to the existing BitTorrent clients.

In addition, Peerialism is already working together with the developer behind the most widely used BitTorrent tracker software currently in use by The Pirate Bay, OpenBitTorrent and PublicBitTorrent trackers. Thus, they are as close to the fire as they can be.

The Open Source tracker, currently codenamed OpenTracker 2.0, is set to be released in September. If some of the larger trackers decide to use it we might see a huge drop in Global Internet traffic instantly, along with faster download speeds for most BitTorrent users.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Today we present a more robust report based on data from over 150,000 unique users in more than 400 public BitTorrent swarms. The data for this BitTorrent client comparison is collected by a researcher known as ‘xXx’ of the Tribler P2P research team at Delft University of Technology. The research team will continue to supply TorrentFreak with bi-monthly updates so we can discover new trends and shifts in the usage of the different clients.

The results in the table below give the market share for each individual client. Only 5 clients reached the 1% threshold, the remaining 19 that were encountered are grouped in the ‘other’ category. Some clients were not identified by libTorrent (rakshasa) and those ended up the the unknown ‘category’.

Both uTorrent and the third placed mainline client are developed by BitTorrent Inc, meaning that the company holds an impressive two thirds of the market. The only main contender at the moment is Vuze, formerly known as Azureus, with nearly 17 percent. BitComet, which used to be a major contender, is in fourth place with just 6.5 percent.

The data also gives us more insight into the size of the BitTorrent ‘network’. In December we reported that uTorrent had 28 million unique users a month, and based on this figure that might have grown even higher in the recent months. It is safe to say that there are roughly 50 million active BitTorrent users on the Internet.

It will be interesting to see how the market share of the clients changes over the coming months. Will uTorrent be able to keep its dominant lead? What will happen to Transmission’s market share when they release their Windows version? Will there be any new clients to compete with the top three? Lots of questions that we hope to answer in the future.

Stay tuned!

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