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.

The statistics for all 2010 nominees, except documentary and foreign films, show that 27 of the 34 films were available on BitTorrent in DVD quality last night. Nearly half of the films have leaked as a screener and 10 of those are estimated to be leaked by Academy members.

Although the majority of the Oscar nominees are available online, the movie industry has certainly scored a small victory. Last year all films leaked in one format or another. On another positive note for the MPAA, the median time for films to leak after their US-release date has nearly doubled to 21 days. In 2003 it took only one day for most films to leak onto the Internet.

On the negative side, there were still 4 films that were available online before they they premiered in US movie theaters. In The Loop, The Hurt Locker, The White Ribbon and The Young Victoria all leaked in advance of their official premiere.

The graph below further shows that there are less retail DVD rips available compared to previous years, 44% versus 100% in 2008 and the years before. As Andy also mentions, this figure may go up a little before the official Oscar award ceremony broadcast.

Although this data suggests that the movie industry is becoming more effective in preventing screeners from leaking online, we have to emphasize that more than a third of the leaks originated from deviant Academy members who like to share the work of their colleagues.

The Oscar screener of Avatar was sent out relatively late, only a few weeks ago. It leaked onto the Internet today and is not included in the graphs above.

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

After years of trouble-free operation as the MPAA focused on shutting down the growing ‘threat’ of the snowballing BitTorrent scene, in May 2008 the operator of Newzbin made an announcement.

The company which owns Newzbin had received a threatening letter from the Motion Picture Association (MPA), the MPAA’s big brother. In the letter the MPA claimed that some of the site’s editors (users who report on the location of material uploaded to the worldwide Usenet system) were listing NZBs which linked to movies on Usenet which infringed their member’s copyright.

“Newzbin has recently received two serious complaints regarding the indexing we perform, and raising doubts as to its legality. It is likely that we will in the coming weeks be presented with a court case and have to defend our rights,” said ‘Caesium’, the owner of Newzbin.

Caesium added that the site had never condoned the distribution or indexing of copyright works and insisted that site staff would act immediately to remove any items found to be infringing copyright.

Noting that Newzbin would defend itself vigorously against the complainants, Caesium said he believed that linking to content on Usenet is entirely legal and that the site’s procedures for dealing with unlawful content were appropriate.

“We believe that, or we wouldn’t still be here,” he added.

In December 2008, Newzbin confirmed that it had been removing NZB files which allegedly linked to copyright works stored on Usenet. The MPA still chose to file an injunction against the site.

Now, well over a year later, the showdown of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation & ors v Newzbin Ltd is set to begin next week before Mr Justice Kitchin in London’s High Court.

According to an announcement yesterday by Newzbin’s legal team, the case should last around a week but it’s unknown when any verdict will be handed down following its conclusion.

As we all know, the recent trial of Alan Ellis ended in an acquittal for the ex-OiNK admin and, just like Newzbin, his site hosted no copyright works and provided only meta data which linked to material hosted elsewhere.

However, Ellis’s charge was one of fraud, allegedly conducted by an individual and dealt with under criminal law, while that leveled against Newzbin is one of allowing and inducing illegal copying, i.e copyright infringement, but carried out by a bona fide company under civil law.

After Ellis’s acquittal, John Kennedy of the IFPI expressed disappointment at the “spectacular failure” of the criminal action and suggested that these type of complex cases should not be held in a crown court, but in the Chancery Division of the High Court.

This is exactly where the Newzbin case is being heard, so this is certainly one to watch. Unlike Ellis who faced possible jail time, Newzbin faces a claim for damages should it lose its case.

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

When ‘caught’ uploading copyright works for the first time, the owner of the Internet connection used for the alleged infringement will receive an email warning. On allegations of a second offense, a physical letter will drop through the door. On the the third, the account holder will be summoned to appear before a judge who will have the power to fine, or even disconnect them from the Internet.

French senator Michel Thiolliere has told the BBC that the so-called Hadopi legislation will have the desired effect, with nearly everyone warned a second time abandoning illegal file-sharing for good.

“What we think is that after the first message… about two-thirds of the people (will) stop their illegal usages of the internet,” he explained

“After the second message more than 95% will finish with that bad usage.”

It is, however, much more likely that after getting a first warning, or even before, French Internet users will try to find a way round this system. They will discover that it’s surprisingly easy.

6 Ways Savvy Internet Users Will Neutralize Hadopi

Free options

MP3 Search Engines

One of the simplest ways to find music online is to use an MP3 search engine. That won’t be difficult as there are dozens to choose from. Sites like Skreemr, Songza, beeMP3, MP3Realm and AirMP3 are very simple to use and since there is no uploading, they drive a cart and horses through Hadopi. For those who don’t mind getting their hands dirty, Google offers similar functionality with their filetype: search operator.

Direct Downloads

During 2008 and 2009, the continued rise of blogs and forums that link to music, movies, tv shows and games stored on so-called cyberlocker sites was difficult to ignore. Although links can get taken down very quickly by copyright holders, they are often replaced just as swiftly by the communities that frequent such sites. The international music industry is particularly worried about the phenomenon, as tracking those that download from sites such as Rapidshare and MegaUpload is completely impractical.

Of course there are also perfectly legal alternatives, such as the excellent Jamendo.

Streaming Music and Video

While there are dozens of sites to visit directly, for those who really can’t be bothered to look any further and don’t mind closing a couple of slightly annoying popups, OVGuide is a huge portal to thousands of movies, TV shows and general video. With the assistance of the DivX plug-in, most content can be streamed directly in compatible web-browsers.

Music fans who don’t mind to stream tracks in their web browser actually have a few dozen legal alternatives. Grooveshark is one of the most elaborate music services. It holds more content than the average download store, supports playlists and it will roll out an iPhone app.

Premium options

Overseas MP3 Sites

Just over the English Channel from France lies the UK. Research carried out there recently by the BPI indicated that usage of MP3 pay sites had increased by 47%. While users do have to hand over money to use these services, at a tiny fraction of prices they would pay in their homeland they prove attractive to those on a tight budget.

Newsgroups

Using Usenet, or newsgroups as they are commonly known, is one of the most secure ways of downloading movies, TV shows, music and video games.

While the learning curve on Usenet is considered by many to be quite steep, once an individual discovers .NZB files – the .torrent of the newsgroup world – everything is hugely simplified. Within seconds of starting a transfer, the user’s connection will be completely maxed-out.

On a practical basis, and certainly as far as Hadopi is concerned, paying a few euros each month for a decent newsgroup account means that French citizens need never fear being disconnected from the Internet. Indeed, not even the first warning email will arrive.

Anonymous VPN

While the above options require that Internet users modify their behaviors, by spending a few euros a month on an anonymous VPN account they won’t have to change any of their habits at all. They can continue to use BitTorrent, eD2K or any other P2P method of file-sharing.

Once subscribed to a service such as Netherlands-based ItsHidden (who also offer a free, but speed-limited service), Hadopi file-sharing investigators will believe that the user behind that IP address is from another country and simply move on.

As the failed and now largely abandoned campaign against file-sharers in the United States proved, scare tactics simply don’t work. There are millions of file-sharers in France and many will simply carry on their activities in the belief that the odds of being caught are extremely slim.

And they would be absolutely right.

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

Yates was asked by his employer to make a promotional copy for the Jay Leno show, but made an extra copy which he shared with friends and family.

Yates’s actions didn’t go unnoticed by his employer and the FBI, who tracked him down through the company’s surveillance cameras. Yates was later arrested and admitted that he distributed the movie among friends and family. The arrest led to a sentence of six months in a federal prison from which he was released in September last year.

The damage done by the leak didn’t stop there though. A member of the Yates family passed the film on to Mischa Wynhausen, who decided to upload it to Mininova. Following an FBI investigation, Wynhausen, a 31 year-old from Irvine CA, was busted as well.

Wynhausen confessed to uploading the film to Mininova and accepted a sentence of three years probation.

Although Wynhausen’s offense is considered to be more severe than that of Yates, he doesn’t have to serve time in jail. According to Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, this difference is in part because Wynhausen cooperated with the FBI, while Yates initially lied about his actions.

On BitTorrent the movie was never a big hit, despite the fact that it was available online before the theater release. This lack of interest mimics the box office earnings. With a production budget of $62 million, ‘The Love Guru’ was a big flop for Paramount Pictures, bringing in little over $40 million at the box office worldwide.

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

The uncontested winner on BitTorrent this year is Star Trek, with well over 10 million downloads, many more than The Dark Knight got last year. The download statistics clearly show that BitTorrent use is still on the up, even though the relative increase is not as pronounced as in previous years.

As we look over the rest of the top 10, we see that there are quite a few differences between popularity at the box office and on BitTorrent. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and 2012 are ranked 2nd and 4th based on their worldwide grosses but didn’t make it into the top 10 list of most swapped movies.

On the contrary, RocknRolla is the third most pirated movie on BitTorrent this year, but with a minuscule worldwide revenue of $25 million it was ranked just 168th at the box office in 2008 when the movie came out. Part of the success of RocknRolla is that it was released by the infamous uploader aXXo whose releases are always guaranteed to have at least a few million downloads.

The data for this list is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including reports from all the large BitTorrent trackers. All release formats, including cammed versions are counted. Afterward, the data is carefully checked and possible inaccuracies are systematically corrected.

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

Last month the Times Online published an interesting graph plotting the various revenue figures over the last 5 years, as reported by the UK music industry themselves. The data clearly shows how the distribution of music industry income has shifted over time. Music labels earn less from recorded music today than they did five years ago, while artists have seen a huge increase in revenues from live performances.

In part inspired by the Times Online article, Swedish researchers came up with similar calculations for the Swedish music industry, which reached a very similar conclusion. Since Napster and later Limewire and BitTorrent gained an audience of hundreds of millions of people, less revenue was made from album and single sales.

For the people who actually perform on stage the outcome is entirely different though. Revenue for musicians actually went up through increased income from live gigs, perhaps thanks to piracy which offers an easy tool to discover new music. Please note, however, that no causal relationship between illegal filesharing and music revenues has been researched.

What is crystal clear from the data, though, is that the revenue streams within in industry are quickly changing. This hugely benefits the musicians who now get a much bigger share of the proverbial pie than a decade ago. Much of this shift can be attributed to the increased income from live performances which nearly doubled to 774 million Swedish Kroner in 2008.

The income figures for the music industry as a whole are less positive though. The overall revenue for the music business has remained pretty much the same since 2000, and that’s just the raw number without an inflation correction.

TorrentFreak contacted Daniel Johansson, researcher at the Royal Institute of Technology, who carried out the research together with his colleague Markus Larsson. Johansson told us that he’s not a supporter of theories suggesting that illegal downloading benefits musicians.

“I can not say anything about how filesharing has influenced the figures, since that is not part of the study,” Johansson told TorrentFreak. “Everyone seems to make the assumption that file sharing is ‘good’ for artists because of this, I disagree,” adding that he cannot back this up with data.

Nevertheless, some have argued that illegal downloading makes it easier to discover new artists, which may indeed boost the number of concert visits, explaining the study’s findings. Another explanation could simply be that the tickets for live gigs have doubled since 2000, while the attendance didn’t increase or decrease.

Whatever the reasons, musicians are doing better now than at the beginning of the decade, despite or in spite of piracy.

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

Despite these worries, neither the ever-increasing piracy rates nor the global recession could prevent Hollywood having its best year ever in 2009. With an estimated $10.6 billion in consumer spending at the US and Canadian box office, the movie industry will break the 2008 record by nearly a billion dollars.

“The global economy is taking a major hit, and when these conglomerates that own movie studios are having a tough time, it’s at least one bright spot in the equation,” Paul Dergarabedian, president of Hollywood.com Box Office said in a comment. “People are still, in 2009, going to the movies in big numbers.”

Hollywood is far from bankrupt and more alive than ever before. In the past decade box office earnings have increased significantly to reach this new record high. Of course this doesn’t mean that the lack of a negative correlation between piracy and box office ticket sales is proving that illegal downloads have no effect at all. It could be that the movie industry would make even more money if the plug was pulled on the Internet.

Then again, without any evidence the opposite could also be true. As many independent filmmakers have already experienced, BitTorrent and the Internet in general can be a boon to the film industry and a potential source of revenue.

Perhaps Hollywood should stop complaining and start to see the millions of illegal downloaders as potential customers instead of thieves. There’s a huge demand for online entertainment, so why not compete with piracy instead of spending millions of dollars fighting it?

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

Following the announcement came a two month investigation to ensure that sites were complying with the new rules – inevitably some fell foul. In March the authorities announced that dozens of websites would face penalties or be shut down for broadcasting material described as obscene, violent or fear-inspiring, or that could be detrimental to national security. Many were punished for simply not having the appropriate government certification.

Around a year later the government flexed its muscles again, shutting down more than 150 more video sites, bringing the total to more than 400 since the new regulations were announced.

In early November 2009, SARFT said it would continue cracking down on what it described as “unlicensed” video websites.

Continuing with its earlier justification, the government said it wished to provide a healthy environment for the country’s 200 million online video consumers, to eradicate what it described as lewd, obscene and violent content which had “severely undermined” the health of the country’s children. Although they weren’t initially mentioned, this time round authorities did included copyright issues as one of the reasons that the sites were to be closed.

Included in this swoop were several BitTorrent sites, including the very popular BT @ China. A notice on the site’s homepage explains that in the absence of an appropriate audio/visual license, the site has been ordered to shut down.

Another site, UUbird, which lists dozens of US shows such as Desperate Housewives, Prison Break, Heroes and Lost, said it would delete all links to TV shows and movies by mid-February.

As reported here on TorrentFreak a few days ago, BitTorrent is very popular China, with its main torrent client usage even surpassing that of uTorrent.

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

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.

Ink was downloaded more than 400,000 times last week and ended up in fourth place in our weekly chart of most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, where Zombieland occupied the top spot.

Zombieland co-writer Rhett Reese has been following our most pirated movies chart as well, and thus the online success of his film. “Zombieland currently the most pirated movie on bit torrent. Over one million downloads and counting,” he tweeted a few hours ago.

However, unlike the makers of Ink, Reese is not pleased with this achievement, claiming that this piracy disaster may very well prevent a Zombieland sequel from being shot. “Beyond depressing. This greatly affects the likelihood of a Zombieland 2,” he wrote.

Reese’s comments are the classic Hollywood response we wrote about yesterday. Piracy is causing billions of dollars in lost revenue and prevents new movies from being funded, is the doomsday scenario they often paint. But is there any truth in this hunch, or is it just another Hollywood performance? Facts seem to support the latter.

More piracy is not necessarily linked with a drop in box office grosses or DVD sales. ‘The Dark Knight’, which was the most downloaded movie on BitTorrent in 2008 sold millions of DVDs, and grossed a record breaking billion dollars in cinemas worldwide. But what about Zombieland?

The Hollywood Insider wrote that the movie is “alive and kicking” at the box office, putting its success down in part to “strong word-of-mouth”. The release also marks the most successful debut of Woody Harrelson’s career, hitting the No.1 spot and taking $9.4m on its first day and a worldwide $84m to date – all this on a production budget of less than $24m.

Zombieland grossed more than $60.8 million in 17 days, even surpassing the remake of the Dawn of the Dead to become the top-grossing zombie film in history. That does not really sound like something that will prevent a sequel to us.

On the contrary, if anything success on BitTorrent has a direct relation with success at the box office. Since unauthorized ripped versions of virtually all movies appear on the Internet nowadays, it would be a really bad sign if no pirate would want to download it.

But of course, Reese and others could still argue that they would have made even more money if there was no piracy. There are no hard facts to refute this, but with the box office revenue steadily increasing since P2P file-sharing became mainstream, it has to be doubted as well. The same can be said for the claim that less films receive funding.

As many independent filmmakers have already experienced, BitTorrent and the Internet in general can be a boon to the film industry. Instead of seeing it as a threat Hollywood might want to embrace it before it’s too late.

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

Today, iiNet CEO Michael Malone was questioned at length over dealings he had with Westnet, another ISP which was acquired by his company for AUS $81 million in May 2008.

Westnet had developed an automated system to pass on infringement notices from copyright holders to its customers, a process which Malone earlier described as “making more work for no benefit,” and was said to be scathing in defense of due process and consumer rights.

“Taking the opposing argument, a random third party is lodging an unsubstantiated accusation against a customer and you’re passing it on?” wrote Malone in an email to Westnet, continuing, “Your current approach is doing damage to the industry and iiNet’s position on this matter.”

According to itNews, today Malone admitted he had “hit the roof” when he had discovered Westnet’s policy on infringement notices.

When any company acquires another there is often a need to standardize procedures and policies, and with iiNet and Westnet the position was no different. Malone said that whenever he found differences in policies between the two companies he took steps to bring those of Westnet into line with those at iiNet. He also stated that he was unaware that Westnet had failed to follow his instructions and adopt iiNet group policy following the acquisition.

One of the reasons he sought to change the Westnet policy, he said, was to bring the company into line with the position held by the Internet Industry Association on the issue.

Cross-examining Malone on iiNet’s role in providing a broadband service which enabled users to share movies using BitTorrent, senior counsel Tony Bannon for the movie industry referred to infringement notices sent to iiNet for the Sony movie, Pineapple Express.

According to CW, Malone responded that as a mere service provider, iiNet had no way of knowing if any of its customers were engaged in copyright infringement, but could confirm that the individual who allegedly committed the breaches was still an iiNet customer.

The company was not aware, however, if the customer continued to breach copyright.

The case continues tomorrow.

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.

Today iiNet’s lawyers cross-examined representatives from 20th Century Fox, Disney, Warner and Paramount via video link.

After being accused earlier in the trial of having deals in place with BitTorrent Inc, ZDNet reports that Paramount admitted it had a deal with the company for it to prevent illegal copies of its movies being shared via its BitTorrent software. However, this seems more likely to be a filter applied to search results on the BitTorrent.com site, rather than any obstruction in the software itself. Any notion that BitTorrent Inc spied or spies on users of its software in order to restrict their activities would be a disaster for the company.

Paramount could not confirm if the deal prevented piracy or not but acknowledged that it ran from October 6 2006 until October 6 2008, and had now expired. Paramount had an option to extend it for a further year, but did not.

As mentioned in our earlier coverage, iiNet lawyers suggested that the publishing of studio logos (including that of Paramount) on the BitTorrent.com website could have caused some confusion for potential BitTorrent downloaders.

However, according to a report, Paramount could be set to lodge a formal complaint with BitTorrent Inc over what it described as “unauthorized use” of its logo. This development seems to be somewhat of a cheap shot by Paramount. Their logo has been on the BitTorrent.com site for a very long time (and remains there today) so the ‘revelation’ in court that it exists there should hardly come as a surprise – they were business partners after all.

iiNet lawyers put it to 20th Century Fox anti-piracy boss Ronald Wheeler that making material available online helped to reduce piracy. While he could not confirm that immediately, he did say that because content is available online, it counters the argument that the only way to obtain the content is illegally.

Warner representative David Kaplan confirmed that his company also had a deal with BitTorrent Inc but although he couldn’t be certain, he felt the deal had expired since the MPA hadn’t kept him updated about it.

iiNet lawyers also produced a document which was alleged to be license agreement between Warner and the defunct Wurld Media, to distribute content via P2P. While Kaplan admitted the deal was now dead, he confirmed the authenticity of the document.

A further interesting development came after AFACT chief Neil Gane admitted that his organization’s investigative techniques – hiring someone to pretend to be a regular iiNet customer in order to engage in file-sharing of copyright works with other iiNet customers – could be construed as copyright infringement in itself.

In last week’s court sessions, iiNet lawyers put it to Gane that AFACT could have been involved in condoning copyright infringement, referring to the actions mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Gane admitted that there would have been occasions where AFACT’s own investigators had undertaken an activity which had been described by iiNet lawyers as “an infringement of copyright”.

“And that’s something you will tolerate happening at your own premises?” said iiNet lawyer Richard Cobden.

“It’s an investigative technique,” Gane replied

The case continues.

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

During the next few days, maybe hours, Demonoid may go down due to some serious-sounding technical issues. They have already caused some damage to the site so the operators want to limit further damage.

“We are experiencing power outages that have caused some ram and hard drive issues. We might have to shut down everything to fix and prevent further damage,” they say in a statement.

The downtime could be extended, “…days maybe, until we can change the power circuit,” they add.

Several Demonoid users already report connection issues, but the site is still accessible to most people at the time of writing. The blackout won’t mean much to millions of Russian and Ukrainian BitTorrent users though, since they are already blocked from the site.

Over the years Demonoid has had its fair share of downtime. In June 2007 Demonoid was pressured to leave their host in the Netherlands, mainly because of legal threats from the Dutch anti-piracy outfit, BREIN. The site then relocated to Canada, but after threats from the CRIA, it decided to shut down there as well.

In 2008 the site eventually reappeared in full glory after being offline for six months. This time the downtime shouldn’t last that long. Any Demonoid users stuck for ideas on alternatives if the site goes down, can check here. If you’re looking for high speed downloads you could also consider to try Usenet instead (our Usenet guide).

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

One band embracing file-sharing are Toronto-based melodic folk rock group Great Lake Swimmers.

In an interview earlier this year, the band’s lead vocalist Tony Dekker said that although he doesn’t share files himself and would prefer it if fans got music from legitimate sources, he’s OK with it since people are “spreading the word about a band they love through file sharing.”

Now, in a recent interview, Dekker recalls their performance at an Ontario music festival in 2008, after which Robert Plant said he liked the band’s songs. Getting noticed by a big name was a boost for them but it was the band’s transformation from playing small venues to becoming more widely known that he says demonstrates the power of a new type of marketing.

Dekker says that this development of the band’s wider exposure is down to the modern equivalent of word-of-mouth promotion. We know it as “file-sharing” and it is this technology that Dekker says has allowed the band to move far beyond its Canadian roots.

“It’s not just something that’s specific to a region anymore. It’s global. It’s global word-of-mouth,” he says.

“People can share ideas, share music files and stuff, and I think it’s good. It’s good for music because you don’t have to scratch far below the surface to find interesting music that doesn’t have the machinery of a big record label behind it,” he concludes.

Indeed, as the anti-filesharing antics of the big labels continues to further alienate them from their artists’ fans, finding good music that they have nothing to do with is becoming more important than ever.

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

Using a mod like this means that no offense of distribution could have been carried out. Indeed, as we pointed out in our earlier report, the stats from her client showed no evidence of uploading, despite an uptime of 924 days.

The lawyers who sent the cease and desist (and a demand for 700 euros) didn’t withdraw the claims after she protested her innocence, so she took advice, went to court and filed suit against the rightsholder.

Unfortunately the judge in the case has no idea about IT issues and wants to have an independent witness examine the software used by anti-piracy tracking company Media Protector. Experts don’t come cheap and this one is set to cost 5,000 euros.

This is believed to be the first time that a neutral expert witness has had the opportunity to examine the software of an anti-piracy company in Germany. So, together with filesharing lawyer Dr. Wachs, Verein gegen den Abmahnwahn e.V and Initiative Abmahnwahn-Dreipage, our friends at news site Gulli have started a donation drive to raise the funds.

Lawyer Dr. Wachs has kindly given the woman 3,000 euros towards the expert but a further 2,000 must be raised via donations. Hopefully this amount can be achieved as engaging the skills of the expert witness will provide a golden opportunity to see exactly how these systems operate and have their shortcoming revealed in court.

Anyone wishing to contribute can do so here (bank details at bottom of article)

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

They have the fallout from the planned sale to Global Gaming Factory to contend with, a new lawsuit initiated by US movie studios, and yesterday they lost a Dutch court case in their absence. From that action they now face the prospect of huge fines in The Netherlands if they don’t disable that country’s access to their site within 10 days.

Today brings news of yet another upcoming lawsuit against Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm, even though they say they disposed of The Pirate Bay a little over 3 years ago.

Italy’s FIMI (Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana) and FPM (Federation against Musical Piracy) say they will be suing the three and seeking damages in excess of 1 million euros.

In August 2008, The Pirate Bay was made inaccessible in Italy after ISPs were ordered to block its domain. However, The Pirate Bay appealed and eventually won the court case. In October the Court of Bergamo ruled that no foreign website can be censored for alleged copyright infringement. The case is now awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court of Appeal.

This new Italian legal action is based on evidence collected during The Pirate Bay proceedings in Bergamo last year – evidence which, incidentally, was supplied by FIMI to the prosecutor in the first instance.

Referring to the planned sale of TPB to GGF and their basis of claim, President of FIMI, Enzo Mazza, said: “The claim is also based on the principle that by selling the site to others, the founders have confirmed that the whole illegal operation of The Pirate Bay was to make a profit and it is therefore unacceptable that someone can take the money and then escape without repairing the damage.”

Peter Sunde’s Italian lawyers, Giovanni Battista Gallus and Francesco Paolo Micozzi, told TorrentFreak that under Italian law, an entity seeking compensation for damages, when there is an ongoing criminal indictment, could either file a civil action outside of the proceedings (i.e, a normal civil action for damages), or bring his claim for damages within the criminal procedure as a damaged party.

“In any case, nothing has been notified to us (as lawyers of Peter Sunde) so far,” Gallus told TorrentFreak. “I gather they have announced their intentions before starting the procedure.”

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

After its transformation into a pirate tracking outfit Nexicon launched its Getamnesty program which offers copyright holders a chance to turn piracy into profit. They cleverly circumvent privacy protection laws by using ISPs to forward settlement requests for various copyright holders to alleged infringers. One of their most successful partner programs is the Payartists website which is a misleading name to say the least.

The money collected through Payartists is not going to any artists at all. The only artist they collect ’settlements’ for on the site is Frank Zappa, and he passed away in 1993. All the settlement money collected now goes to The Zappa Family Trust which is headed by Zappa’s widow.

Most recently a new Nexicon franchise emerged, as the ‘Video Protection Alliance’ (VPA) has teamed up with several porn studios to track down and force settlements from alleged copyright infringers. The methods they use are very similar to Getamnesty and Payartists and are designed to get cash payments from illicit file-sharers without even having to first find out who they are.

The process is simple. Their software monitors BitTorrent swarms and other filesharing networks and records the IP-addresses of those people who share the work of their clients. It then automatically sends an email to the ISP linked to the IP-address with a request to forward it to the associated customer.

Thus far, this is very similar to the warning letters that the movie and music studios have been sending out for years. However, there is one big difference. The emails sent out by Nexicon to alleged infringers contain veiled threats of legal action if they don’t choose to settle within 10 days.

In their email they write that “it may be beneficial to settle this matter without the need of costly and time-consuming litigation.”

If you don’t settle they are “prepared to pursue every available remedy including damages, recovery of attorney’s fees, costs and any and all other claims that may be available to it in a lawsuit filed against you.” To make it even more scary, they point out that ISPs might cut your Internet connection if you don’t comply.

In the FAQ on the VPA website it is noted that consulting a lawyers is an option, but it would be a rather silly thing to do since it will cost more than the settlement itself. “It is likely that the cost incurred to retain a lawyer will exceed the settlement amount offered.”

Indeed, the settlements are rather cheap compared to the fine that was handed out to Jammie Thomas recently. The settlement offer for an adult movie is close to the retail price of a DVD and for a single Frank Zappa track you’ll pay $10. In comparison, Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay $80,000 per song.

However, because of these low fees and the use of threatening language we cannot help mentioning the word ‘extortion’ once more. Even if they handle with the best intentions they should adjust their tracking software to be more accurate. We confirmed at least one case where they sent a settlement offer to the wrong person, and we’re pretty sure that this is not the only mistake they’ve made (here’s another one).

Still, even people wrongfully accused of sharing [insert obscene porn title here] may be inclined to pay a few bucks rather than risk being taken to court. The threats are worrying enough for some people to pay for an offense they didn’t commit. But there might be an even easier way out.

Unsurprisingly, very little happens when the threats are ignored. A Manhattan College employee dealing with DMCA notices wrote recently. “We have not passed the settlement info on to the students linked with the allegedly infringing IP address and have not had any follow up notices from them.”

This aside, we are not aware of any legal action taken by any of Nexicon’s partners to back up their threats. To the best of our knowledge they don’t even have a proper license to act as private investigators which is a felony in several US states and renders the ‘evidence’ they have in their spreadsheets useless.

Our advice, if you get a settlement offer from one of Nexicon’s partners please forward it to your spam folder – after forwarding it to us first of course.

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

A few weeks ago, some blogs and commenters on Mininova picked up on this and reported that aXXo decided to go underground, releasing his torrents only on a few private trackers. Interestingly, he would also have left Darkside RG which was considered to be his home for years, and where he posted the following message only weeks ago.

“My home is my beloved Darkside and as i’ve said so many times before on each of my torrents…. Be aware of bogus sites and lamers,” aXXo wrote.

So here are some facts. There is indeed a staff member called aXXo (with identical capitalization) on Speed.cd. He joined the site in January 2008 and has been uploading (some) aXXo rips after they appeared on public sites such as Mininova. After aXXo stopped releasing torrents elsewhere, aXXo on Speed.cd continued to upload movies.

But is this member called aXXo on Speed.cd the real deal? No, not even close. A quick comparison of the codecs used on these “new” aXXo releases and an examination of some of the metadata such as the ripping software and specs, clearly shows that it is not the same aXXo his fans know and love.

Also, it is a bit strange that the mystical aXXo only uploaded his releases sporadically onto the Speed.cd tracker before he stopped releasing on public sites three months ago. To us, these are all clear signs that we’re dealing with an impostor here.

For years aXXo has been warning followers to “beware of bogus sites and lamers,” but apparently that didn’t help much. Over recent weeks, thousands of people signed up at Speed.cd, and according to a poll on the site, most of them joined because of the ‘aXXo’ releases.

The aXXo user on the private tracker is clearly enjoying his new status, and has even changed the NFO files bundled with his releases to point to Speed.cd instead of DarksideRG. In the comments he is chatting with his new found fans and explaining why he decided to leave Mininova and Demonoid.

The site’s operators on the other hand are welcoming the many donations made by aXXo’s followers. “Since axxo is part of this site I have donated $10,” one user commented after buying some upload credit and VIP status. There are even better deals though. Three months of VIP access is only $50 and you’ll get a star next to your nickname as bonus.

Then again, if thousands of people can’t spot the difference between the uploads of aXXo and the fake aXXo, does it really matter? We’re inclined to say no, if it wasn’t for the price lists and money begging going on at that site.

Let’s hope that they don’t have the MPAA fooled and end up with their servers raided by the authorities. That would be a shame.

Update: A topic on Speed.cd linking to this article was quickly removed….

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