“The idea is to sell USB drives using this brand,” said Sandryds Handel spokesman Bengt Wessborg.

“We saw that it was not already allocated to someone else. It was not registered.”

The company went on to register an almost exact copy of the logo, differing only slightly in color and lacking a capital letter on the word ‘Bay’. The move was accepted by PRV, Sweden’s Patent and Registration Office.

Ex-Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde was not happy with the move.

“They [Sandryds] knew that [the logo] was not owned or created by them and they [registered the logo] to attain a position of power against The Pirate Bay,” he wrote in an email protest to PRV.

After earlier saying that they were prepared to strike a deal with The Pirate Bay over the logo, that offer appears to have come to pass. Following discussions with Sunde, Sandryds have now backtracked and agreed to de-register the trademark. But they don’t come away empty-handed.

Company spokesman Bengt Wessborg told SR they are happy with their achievement, having secured permission to use the Pirate Bay logo on a new product.

“We have had permission from The Pirate Bay to sell a media player with the logo on,” said Wessborg.

Although the mechanism by which Sandryds achieved this permission was more than a little dubious, admittedly the choice of end-product to display the logo seems the perfect fit.

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

However, despite the shunning of the multi-colored approach of the above, among those millions of Internet users for whom BitTorrent has become a way of life, or those technology reporters who have written so much about the site, the logo employed by The Pirate Bay is also very recognizable indeed. The ship emblem, with its sails featuring the outline of a cassette tape-and-crossbones, has been reproduced millions of times on countless numbers of websites and products.

The Pirate Bay, in line with their sharing ethos, has always allowed people to use the logo free of charge and even makes the artwork publicly available in usable, scalable formats to ease its reproduction, some of which were used to create fan tattoos. But that is still not enough for some greedy individuals.

Today news broke that a private Swedish company, noticing that the logo had no commercial protection, took the opportunity to hijack it. The outfit, Sandryds Handel AB, have officially registered the emblem as their own with the authorities, with the intention of commercially exploiting it.

While admitting they have absolutely nothing to do with The Pirate Bay, in a radio interview Sandryds Handel spokesman Bengt Wessborg defended his company’s action.

“The idea is to sell USB drives using this brand,” he told SR. “We saw that it was not already allocated to someone else. It was not registered,” he added.

A spokesman for Sweden’s Patent and Registration Office said that they were unable to find that any rights to the logo were held by The Pirate Bay, therefore they were able to allocate them to Sandryds.

The logo registered by the company is very slightly different in color to that of the original Pirate Bay design, with ‘The Pirate Bay’ written as “The Piratebay”.

Commenting on the news, ex-Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde told TorrentFreak: “It will be turned over quite easily, it’s a preliminary registration that is being ‘tested’,” adding that while anyone can use the logo for any purpose they like, they may not take any action which limits the way other people can use it.

Peter says he wrote to Sandryds, and they replied telling him “…that they were amazed themselves and just wanted to try.”

TorrentFreak asked if The Pirate Bay is going to try and get the logo back, and we were told that they would try to get the decision by the patent office anulled, adding that the registration wasn’t legal and is therefore prohibited by law.

“It’s a person at the registration office that has made an error – willingly or not, we’re not sure,” they added.

“It would be nice if they liked it,” said the Sandryds spokesman in a statement. “But we may perhaps enter into dialogue with them if needed,” he added.

Needless to say, certain Pirate Bay supporters will not “like” this hijacking at all, and offering discussions over the reappropriation of an emblem they already see as their own will be tantamount to waving a red rag at a bull.

History shows us what happens to outfits who take negative actions against The Pirate Bay, so on past experience, if Sandryds Handel hope to keep doing business on the web in any meaningful way, they may want to quickly reassess their position.

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.

The case continued in the Federal Court, with AFACT continuing to make its closing submissions, marked by further attempts by barrister Tony Bannon to ruin the credibility of key iiNet witnesses Michael Malone and Steve Dalby.

Referring yet again to iiNet CEO Michael Malone’s earlier and multiple assertions that his company could not disconnect subscribers on mere allegations from a 3rd party, Bannon pointed that Malone had earlier referred to the evidence collected by anti-piracy tracking company DtecNet in a more positive light.

“But when asked the question in cross-examination, the truth is they regarded the notifications as compelling evidence,” said Bannon according to ITNews.

Based on what Bannon tried to insist was a contradiction, that “compelling” and “mere allegations” were incompatible when referring to the same material, Bannon asked the judge to disregard iiNet’s evidence.

Although earlier information about DtecNet’s methods were revealed in a closed-court session, CW reports that the anti-piracy company operated by downloading a portion of a file from iiNet subscribers while recording the IP address, the time of the transfer and the date, the protocol, the client id and a hash value.

Reiterating his earlier claims, Bannon insisted that chief regulatory officer Steve Dalby had deliberately exaggerated his claimed lack of understanding of BitTorrent and the infringement notices sent to iiNet by DtecNet. While Dalby had said that he had waited for AFACT to send more information, in fact internal iiNet email evidence showed that Dalby had discouraged further investigation, he said.

Bannon went on to state that companies like iiNet benefit greatly from illicit file-sharing, since the activity consumes a lot of bandwidth – the commodity the ISP sells to its customers.

Referring to an iiNet press release from late 2008 where the company said it would defend the court case, Bannon said the ISP had stated it could not disconnect a customer on a simple allegation. This, he said, amounted to assuring customers of their safety when carrying out illicit file-sharing.

Earlier in the case, iiNet claimed to have taken “reasonable steps” to deal with infringement on its network, an assertion roundly criticized by Bannon. The AFACT barrister said that iiNet has a technique to limit a subscriber’s access to the Internet if they don’t pay their bills, so this could easily be applied when an allegation of illicit file-sharing is provided by his client.

Bannon also said that since Westnet, the company iiNet had earlier acquired, already had a system in place to notify infringers, it was a “nonsense” to say that iiNet hadn’t got the facilities to deal with AFACT notices.

Bannon went on to tell the court that iiNet’s participation in discussions 4 years ago with the Internet Industry Association to create a code of conduct to deal with copyright infringement allegations, also did not constitute “reasonable steps”, since it didn’t address the “day to day” problems. Furthermore, he said that the overall plan by the ISPs was to aim at “doing nothing”.

Going on to strengthen his claim that iiNet “authorized and encouraged” the infringements of its customers, and in the face of iiNet failing to carry out any actions that could be described as “reasonable steps”, Bannon asserted that this meant that the ISP effectively allowed its subscribers to do whatever they liked on their Internet connection.

The case continues.

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.

AFACT said that the email documents, which were seen by CW, show that the ISP could have done more to deal with the alleged infringements.

AFACT’s barrister, Tony Bannon, noted that iiNet training documents indicated that the ISP knew its customers were using P2P networks, which he said showed the the ISP knew what its customers were doing. Of course, just because iiNet knew the protocols or networks being used by its subscribers, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they knew the copyright status of material being transferred. Indeed, with BitTorrent, monitoring and identification (by, for example, using fingerprinting techniques) is almost impossible.

The emails, which were sent between iiNet CEO Michael Malone and bosses of another ISP, Westnet, which at the time was being acquired by iiNet, were said to contain discussions of how to deal with AFACT infringement notices.

According to ITnews, Malone asked how Westnet dealt with these infringement notices. Westnet had developed an automated system to pass on infringement notices to its customers, a process Malone described as “making more work for no benefit.”

While Westnet said it was “acting with conscience” when it passed the AFACT infringement notices on to customers, Malone 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, continuing, “Your current approach is doing damage to the industry and iiNet’s position on this matter.”

After AFACT ended its opening statements around lunchtime, the court heard those from iiNet.

Richard Cobden for the ISP characterized AFACT’s case as a “novel composition and adventurous” and “a dramatic extension of the application of the law”. He then went on to describe AFACT’s earlier allegations of 94,942 infringements as “artificially inflated by a contrived process”.

Cobden said that AFACT incorrectly counted these infringements. According to CW, AFACT counted the same infringements more than one – if it checked in the morning for infringements and then again in the afternoon, if the same infringement on an individual’s computer was still ongoing, AFACT counted it as another infringement, not a single extended one.

Tomorrow will see the end of iiNet’s opening arguments and then it will be AFACT’s turn to call its first witnesses.

This section of the case is scheduled to run for two weeks, then everyone will take a break for another two. The case will then conclude after a further two weeks of hearings.

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

The studios – Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network (all under the umbrella of AFACT) – claim that iiNet knew about the copyright infringements of its subscribers, yet did nothing about them.

The case, officially known as Roadshow Films Pty Ltd ACN 100 746 870 & Ors v iiNet Ltd ACN 068 628 937, is particularly serious, since its outcome could determine if ISPs can be held liable for the infringing actions of its customers.

Earlier, AFACT investigators claimed to have recorded around 100,000 copyright infringements carried out by iiNet’s customers using BitTorrent.

For the benefit of the court proceedings, AFACT presented just under 30,000 sample infringements covering 86 copyright works, including two Batman movies, Spiderman 3, Happy Feet, Pirates of the Caribbean and TV shows The Simpsons, Family Guy, Bones and Heroes.

The Angelina Jolie movie Wanted was the title claimed to be most infringed by iiNet’s subscribers, with Will Smith’s Hancock coming in second place. Both clocked up more than 1,000 instances of alleged infringement.

“By making those films available in those 29,914 instances, iiNet customers invited any and every user of the freely available BitTorrent software program to download any and every part of those infringing copies,” said an AFACT lawyer. He then went on to speculate that the 29,914 figure would have to be multiplied many times to get the overall picture of the making available carried out by iiNet’s customers.

AFACT claimed that it had sent information about these infringements to the ISP and demanded that iiNet disconnect the culprits, but the ISP did nothing.

AFACT barrister Tony Bannon also said that iiNet failed to enforce its own user agreement, which includes a clause prohibiting its users from using the service for illegal activities.

Bannon went on to argue that iiNet benefits from piracy since illegal downloaders use a lot of bandwidth and the more they use, the more the ISP makes. He said that disconnecting them would mean that iiNet would lose a customer, something the ISP wishes to avoid, hence the lack of action.

It’s always been somewhat of a mystery why AFACT chose to single out iiNet for legal action, particularly since all other ISPs in Australia have been operating on a similar basis. However, when iiNet made an earlier request to include as evidence how other ISPs responded to AFACT complaints, it was denied.

However, after Bannon gave a video presentation of AFACT’s investigator downloading Batman Begins using BitTorrent, Justice Cowdroy then asked if he could be shown other ISPs said to be facilitating file-sharing.

“Can you show me, Mr Bannon, how many other internet providers are providing the same sorts of information? What other ones right now are doing this?” he said, noting that that iiNet had appeared just four times.

Bannon could not recall the names of the other ISPs and the judge indicated he would be keen to see a live BitTorrent demonstration, rather than just a recorded demo.

The case continues. The defense will present its case later this week.

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

Torrent sites have been the target of these removal requests more than once, and Google usually removes the ‘infringing’ torrent detail pages from their search results fairly quickly.

According to Google the altered search results are caused by DMCA complaints the company receives from copyright holders. One of the most recent takedown requests, sent by a company that protects the copyrights of porn producers, was targeted at The Pirate Bay.

“In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed X result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org,” Google users can now read beneath the search results for The Pirate Bay and similar terms.

Now this wouldn’t be that odd if only a few adult film torrents were removed from the search results. However, those who take a closer look will notice that the takedown request resulted in a ban of the Pirate Bay frontpage from the search results.

As can be seen from the picture above the rest of the Pirate Bay domain is still indexed, but not the frontpage. This is not the end of the world of course but since there are no torrents listed on the Pirate Bay frontpage, Google has clearly made a mistake here.

The details of the takedown notice that was sent by Removeyourcontent are not yet available, but it may be that it included the Pirate Bay frontpage and that Google removed it without checking whether the claim was legitimate.

TorrentFreak has contacted Google for a response, but thus far we haven’t heard back from them. If it is indeed a mistake we assume that it will be corrected soon. Perhaps they can delete the scammy PirateBay.com site while they’re at it?

Update: Destined Enterprises, the company that operates the site that sent the takedown requests according to Google, claims they haven’t asked Google to remove the Pirate Bay homepage from the search results (although they are not completely sure). In a letter (pdf) the company’s lawyer has sent to Google a few minutes ago, they request a copy of the takedown notice, fearing that someone else might use their name to send these takedown notices.

Update 2: Google has lifted the Pirate Bay ban. The homepage appears in the search results again. The DMCA notice in question is also published and the Pirate Bay homepage is not listed there, so it’s likely that Google made a mistake.

Update 3 Google says the mistake was due to “takedown request that erroneously listed thepiratebay.org.” The company that sent the takedown notice denies this. “They are blaming us but it’s ok. We are used to it,” they told TorrentFreak.

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

Lily has managed to capture the imaginations of both sides – people are talking about this issue and that is always a good thing.

Debate, discussion and hopefully understanding will bring this file-sharing ‘war’ to an end one day but in the meantime let’s not forget what this is ultimately all about – the music. We all love it and that’s why you’ll love this too;

“After Lily’s hectic week I’ve made a pro-filesharing song and video calling her up on a few of the claims she’s made,” UK musician Dan Bull explains to TorrentFreak.

“I’ve also tried to outline some of the main moral arguments for filesharing in the lyrics. Hope you enjoy, and hope the readers do too.”

The song is brilliant in my opinion, and, ironically I suppose, i’d like to give Dan some money for his work, he deserves it. Let’s hope this song gets to Internet #1 this weekend and he reaps the benefit. Now if I can just get the chorus out of my head…..

…or if you prefer, download the MP3 here.

Dan’s MySpace page can be found here and his album ‘Safe’ is available from FreshNut but can also be downloaded digitally from iTunes, Amazon and Napster.

You can grab it free of charge here or using Mininova.

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

These are the words of singer songwriter James Blunt in The Times today, in response to the opinions of Lily Allen published and republished a thousand times last week. Allen had taken a swipe at Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and Nick Mason, the Pink Floyd drummer, after they came out and said that file-sharing is beneficial for artists.

Both O’Brien and Mason are members of the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), which opposes plans by Peter Mandelson to disconnect persistent file-sharers, but they are becoming quite a problem for the rest of the industry.

The major labels, who hold the opposite opinion on the issue of unauthorized downloading, have been in intensive talks with FAC over the last week, trying to reach some sort of consensus on the way ahead. Somehow the music industry needs to show a united front to the government, but at the moment that seems very unlikely. Yesterday FAC said that so far they have failed to find a way forward with the rest of the industry.

“[The] power to demand suspensions of accounts is only achievable through a wide-scale invasion of personal privacy which we believe would result in a dangerous reduction in the rights to protection of the individual. Putting this power in place would reduce the civil liberties of every one of us in the country in order to afford a disincentive threat to a small minority of ‘egregious offenders’. We believe this would be both disproportionate and unenforceable,” said FAC in a statement.

FAC said that while it negotiated with the labels all last week, they cannot be moved from their insistence that file-sharers should be disconnected from the Internet. FAC says it is steadfast in its opposition to this route.

In an attempt to soften their edges and appear less aggressive, UK Music, yet another music industry umbrella organization, has removed the actual word “disconnection” from its press releases and statements. However, even a cursory glance at their current wording shows that this omission is purely cosmetic, instead stating: “…..Ofcom should be granted appropriate and proportionate powers as directed by the secretary of state.” Of course, Ofcom are the people that are being proposed to have the power to disconnect file-sharers.

So as FAC and the British public stand on one side, Peter Mandelson, the record labels and the likes of Lily Allen and now James Blunt stand on the other.

“At long last the Government is looking to legislate to protect the industry,” writes Blunt, while completely forgetting that the UK has some perfectly good copyright laws to deal with, surprisingly, copyright infringement.

“Peter Mandelson is looking to engage the internet service providers who, in my opinion, handle stolen goods, and should take much more responsibility,” Blunt continues, while forgetting that as a carrier, under the law ISPs have no responsibility for the traffic they carry or the actions of their subscribers.

“How this legislation pans out, and if it goes through at all, is critical to the survival of the British music business; critical to thousands of jobs; and critical to our ability to nurture and develop great musicians and the songs and albums that we would hope to listen to in the future,” Blunt concludes.

Bringing in draconian laws to scare the public into buying music is not the answer. Taking away people’s Internet is definitely not the solution. The labels need to realize this and instead provide some high quality all-you-can-eat music services at a price that everyone can afford.

And as UK ISP Virgin Media sends its message to the government that a “heavy-handed, punitive regime will simply alienate consumers” and that “persuasion not coercion” is the key to solving this illicit file-sharing ‘problem’, I’ll end with a few lines from martial artist and best-selling author Geoff Thompson’s book Watch My Back, as he writes about a gang trying to impose their will on others;

This crew had gained respect in the city, but it was respect born through fear; stolen not given. Respect is worthless unless it’s earned. Any half-wit can point a loaded gun and demand respect but it brings hate with it. Real respect encourages co-operation and understanding

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

“We get the legal rights from the companies to distribute these movies to stores, and with these rights we can sue illegal downloaders,” said Digiprotect’s account manager Thomas Hein as he explained how his operation works. “Then we take legal action in every country possible, concentrating on the places where such action will be profitable.”

“No one working for DigiProtect has a fixed salary. If we make money, everybody makes money. If we don’t, nobody does. This means the lawyers, sales people and customers. It’s all about how much money can be recouped and then sharing it,” he added, crucially.

And here lies the problem. According to lawyer Christian Solmecke of Wilde & Beuger law firm in Germany, the law requires such an operation to have an RVG agreement, which is part of the mechanism to regulate attorney’s fees. Since no-one can say how much the lawyers get paid, this causes difficulty.

“The interview creates the impression that no RVG agreement was entered into by DigiProtect and the law firms who admonish users [threaten with pay-up-or-else letters]. The report relating that the money thus earned is shared, rather suggests a success fee. Such an agreement is illegal. An admonishment based on it would equally be illegal and admonishing expenses would not have to be paid,” Solmecke notes.

DigiProtect have been pretty open about their aim of generating profit for their own company and their partners – indeed, its tagline is Turn Piracy Into Profit. This may also cause problems for their lawyer partners.

“If the admonishment serves solely the purpose of generating gains, it may furthermore be repudiated for reasons of abuse of legal right,” says Solmecke.

DigiProtect partners with lawyers ACS:Law in UK and presumably operates in a similar manner, sharing profits from those who ultimately pay up on the threats.

Update: Aldor Nini from Easycom contacted TorrentFreak with his view on this article. It’s a long read but interesting nonetheless

Our company develops end-user software, custom B2B solutions and sometimes we do also create software for anti-piracy purposes. We’re not related with DigiProtect, nor do we have any business or private relatinoship with them, but we’re very specialized in the German law together with our law-firm in Germany. The German RVG states, that the lawyer should be compensated by the RVG, that’s true. The RVG does also allow the lawyer to be compensated by additional charges like working hours for special tasks, this is also very usual.

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

“The Internet is a wonderful tool that is delivering benefits to increasing numbers of Australian families but the Government wants to find ways to make it safer, particularly for children. This report will assist the Government to deliver on its election commitment to create a safer online environment,” he said.

Ostensibly to protect children online, ISP filtering is just one part of the Australian government’s increasingly costly plan, but it has been roundly criticized for its projected lack of effectiveness.

Additionally there had been concerns that in trying to create a system to filter out material on the Internet, eventually such a system could be used by the “back door” to target copyright infringement issues too.

However, in March 2009 documents which appeared to be the ACMA-maintaned website blacklist leaked onto the Internet. From a list of more than 2,400 sites, just 2 torrent sites were included so maybe blocking torrent sites was never on the agenda.

Interestingly, Stephen Conroy now says that blocking or filtering P2P traffic was never a government target, even though many people were under the impression that it was.

According to a new report this morning, Senator Ludlam of the Greens said that Conroy had previously indicated that P2P filtering technology existed and would be trialled as part of the overall filtering plans.

In response and accusing Ludlam of misleading the public, yesterday Senator Conroy said, “..there has never been a suggestion by this government that peer-to-peer traffic would or could be blocked by our filter.”

Senator Ludlam said Conroy was “moving the goalposts” and that the whole filtering plan was misguided and had riled Internet users.

In reponse, Conroy’s office said that when he said P2P filtering had never been considered by the government, he was referring to “the mandatory part of the filter proposal.” ISP filtering would be an option for ISPs to consider and they could put forward their own proposals if they choose.

Blocking websites is not going to be an effective solution against the menace of child abuse. It is the individuals who operate and frequent such sites that need to be targeted and punished to the full extent of the law but due to a serious lack of funding, these misguided filtering “solutions” will always seem attractive to those who simply don’t understand how easily they are circumvented.

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

Thus far the demand for video continues to grow, and it is even expanding to live video. To keep video services from collapsing and to save bandwidth costs, it seems almost inevitable that content providers will have to look at P2P-based streaming solutions. Last year we reported that CNN had experimented with a P2P-based live stream, and the Tribler research team has already shown that it’s possible to use BitTorrent to stream live footage.

There are currently a few dozen people working on P2P-based live streaming, and they are soon to be joined by Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent. Last week he tweeted that he will beat Tribler’s solution in terms of delay. “Tribler’s live streaming benchmarks are a joke. I’m going for < 5sec delay," Bram wrote.

This comment did of course peak our interest, so we decided to get in touch with Bram Cohen to ask him what he’s up to exactly. He told us that his BitTorrent-powered live streaming implementation is still in an early stage of development, but he hopes to have a working version ready “sometime next year”.

“I think there’s a very large market for live [streaming] in general, and to date noone has proven that a p2p solution can meet the real-world requirements for being an acceptable live solution. I intend on changing that,” Bram told us.

There are still a lot of problems to solve though, before the first version becomes available to the public. Getting BitTorrent to work effectively with live streams requires several major adjustments.

“Doing live properly is a hard problem, and while I could have a working thing relatively quickly, I’m doing everything the ‘right’ way,” Bram told TorrentFreak. He further explained that everything has to be redone in order to make BitTorrent compatible with live streams, “including ditching TCP and using congestion control algorithms different from the ones we’ve made for UTP,” Bram said.

“I am fundamentally a technologist, and am simply not interested in working on something which doesn’t solve the fundamental problem it’s supposed to tackle, especially in a market where there have already been so many bad technologies which failed to succeed based on sales and marketing,” he added

In his tweet Bram Cohen focused on an extremely low latency of less than 5 seconds, so content will not have to buffer for minutes before the stream starts. According to some, such a low latency could mean that a lot of potential upload capacity would go lost. However, Bram disagrees on this, as he explained to TorrentFreak.

“Lower latency doesn’t require extra bandwidth, it just requires that everything be designed from the ground up for low latency. In terms of overhead, I’m shooting for making a swarm able to work with only 20% extra upload capacity, which is subtly different from having 20% extra overhead – because there’s noise in real networks, there needs to be some slop for when things get bad.”

“My actual extra bandwidth used will be less than 10%. This very important benchmark number is generally speaking not even mentioned for most p2p live streaming solutions, and I get the feeling that the developers don’t even know what the value is. I’m taking an approach of viewing all the important benchmarks (latency, extra bandwidth necessary, offload percentage) as central to the whole thing, and running realistic simulations constantly to get a good idea for what they are and help optimize them.”

“Oddly, most live p2p solutions don’t even make coherent claims as to what latency they can provide, and when they do it’s a delay which hardly qualifies as live. My offload of course goes over 99% on large swarms – without that it’s hardly p2p,” Bram said.

The big question is of course how BitTorrent’s inventor will try to solve this puzzle. Many researchers including the Tribler team are looking into P2P-powered live streams, and not all of them agree that the tit-for-tat algorithm based on reciprocity is suited for live streams. However, when we asked Bram whether he is looking into a new algorithm he was very clear.

“No, the low latency requirements basically preclude any competitive algorithms and I’m going with a cooperative approach. It does do a very good job of squeezing out every little bit of upload capacity all the peers have though, and doing it with the same ISP-friendly properties as UTP,” Bram said.

Quite a few ISPs are complaining bitterly about the strain BitTorrent puts on their network, so they will be delighted to hear that they are not being ignored in the development process. If done right, BitTorrent-powered live streams may accelerate the availability of live streams on the Internet.

Not only will existing broadcasters be able to stream their content at low costs, individual users will also be able to stream a live feed to tens of thousands of Internet users from their home connection without having to invest in bandwidth. More than ever the public will be in charge of distribution, while BitTorrent-powered TV moves one step closer to becoming reality.

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

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

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

BitTorrent: Attacked by Copyright Holders, Crushed by Courts, but Needed for Innovation.

The Pirate Bay and other P2P sites continually find themselves on the defensive. Copyright holders repeatedly threaten and sue them. Courts zealously document their contribution to copyright infringement. But copyright holders and courts ignore P2P’s vital role in fostering innovation. I would like to change that.

In my book, Innovation for the 21st Century: Harnessing the Power of Intellectual Property and Antitrust Law, I examine (1) why copyright holders continually seek to quash new technologies, (2) why courts fail to appreciate P2P, and (3) why we should lament these developments.

First, I trace the long history of copyright holders reacting with alarm to new technologies that threaten their business models. John Philip Sousa bemoaned the introduction of the player piano, which would lead to “a marked deterioration in American music.” Jack Valenti warned that the market for copyrighted movies would be “decimated, shrunken [and] collapsed” by the VCR. And the recording industry, lamenting a decline in CD sales, has sued numerous P2P services.

In fearing the potential of the new business models, copyright holders offer a classic example of market leaders that fail to appreciate disruptive innovation. A decade ago, the recording industry responded to Napster, which was striving to be “the online distribution channel for the record labels,” not by striking a deal that would have seamlessly transported the industry into the digital era, but by suing it. While the record labels may have won the battle in shutting down Napster, they began to lose the war, as former users migrated to other P2P networks.

Nor are copyright holders the only ones that fail to appreciate the new technologies. Courts also do. Why? Because of an innovation asymmetry. Courts downplay the future benefits of new technologies and overemphasize copyright owners’ present losses. Copyright owners offer evidence of losses from infringement on a silver platter.

In contrast, non-infringing uses are less tangible. It is difficult to put a dollar figure on the benefits of enhanced communication and interaction. And when a new technology is introduced, no one knows all of the beneficial uses to which it will eventually be put. I offer numerous examples of this (including, just to pick two, the telephone, which Alexander Graham Bell thought would be used to broadcast the daily news, and the phonograph, which Thomas Edison thought would “record the wishes of old men on their death beds”). This asymmetry, combined with costly litigation (which ensnares small technology makers in a web of complex tests and unaffordable lawsuits) explains why courts do not sufficiently appreciate P2P.

This lack of appreciation threatens innovation. As this site’s readers are well aware, BitTorrent and other P2P protocols offer revolutionary forms of interaction and distribution. By breaking up large files into many small pieces, BitTorrent speeds up transfer, allowing the distribution of numerous works, such as home movies, independent films, TV shows, video games, educational videos, computer software, and high-resolution images. Just a few of many examples discussed on this site that have utilized BitTorrent include (1) computer manufacturer Asus, which offers fast, cheap software updates, (2) the airing of a high-definition movie in Norway, and (3) FrostWire’s offering of a service that promotes music of new artists.

Courts’ failure to appreciate P2P and BitTorrent threatens to stifle the development of new business models that attempt to free participants from the shackles of traditional distribution methods. Independent artists would find it much more difficult to break away from mainstream record labels if they lacked an inexpensive method of rapidly and widely distributing their work. Independent filmmakers would no longer be able to reach the masses, instead having to rely on boutique movie theaters or direct DVD mailings.

And of course, we can only see the tip of the P2P innovation iceberg. To pick two of countless examples, in my book I explore potential P2P benefits in providing alternatives to the Google search engine and cloud computing.

In short, the trend—as typified by developments such as the Pirate Bay decision, Malaysia’s order to shut down the tracker LeechersLair, exorbitant statutory damage awards, and various “three strikes” legislative proposals—is to clamp down ever harder on any technology that could contribute in any way to copyright infringement. But in squeezing technologies in this infringement vise, courts and copyright holders threaten to suffocate P2P innovation.

Michael’s book ‘Innovation for the 21st Century: Harnessing the Power of Intellectual Property and Antitrust Law’ is available on Amazon.

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

Now, following an announcement by ARTISTdirect CEO Dimitri Villard, it seems that the sullied names of both MediaDefender and Media Sentry will be consigned to the archives as the company rebrands the pair under a new name: Peer Media Technologies.

Despite the hacking chaos that all but destroyed Media Defender’s business, coupled with the controversy when Media Sentry’s investigative tactics were deemed illegal in several US states (and was promptly dropped by the RIAA), ARTISTdirect is still touting the pair as a force to be reckoned with – albeit with a new coat of paint and a new name.

“The combination of MediaDefender, the leader in Internet Piracy Prevention (IPP) with Media Sentry, the leader in business and marketing intelligence derived from P2P channels, creates a true powerhouse in the field of intellectual property protection,” says a notice on Peer Media’s shiny new website.

CEO Dimitri Villard also announced that he had hired ex Macrovision and Blackwave director Terri Denver as head of worldwide sales at Peer Media.

According to ARTISTdirect, the rebranding and consolidation of MediaDefender and Media Sentry under the Peer Media banner will benefit the customer base “by offering higher quality products than either company did previously.”

Services being offered by Peer Media include spoofing and decoys on file-sharing networks, sending cease and desist notices to ISPs to forward to their customers and sending the same to file-hosting sites carrying copyright content. Other services include monitoring networks for leaked movies and music, and assessing demand for media by monitoring what file-sharers do on the Internet.

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

Today it was announced that GGF and STIM, the Swedish Performing Rights Society, have entered into negotiations for license rights for The Pirate Bay.

Earlier, GGF CEO Hans Pandeya told TorrentFreak that his company had started discussions with several of the major entertainment industry companies, and that the responses have been very positive. Thus far the only confirmed partner is STIM, but the names of the other organizations GGF are in discussions with will be announced after the site has been acquired.

STIM is a key partner, Pandeya stressed: “STIM is very important to us because they have spent several years working out special agreements for filesharers. This is not an easy task because the music world is so complicated that it is difficult to know where to start. Other publishing societies will be able to draw upon STIM’s work instead of reinventing the wheel,” he told TorrentFreak.

The rights organization on the other hand welcomes GGF’s plans to legalize the Pirate Bay, as they hope that the deal will bring in some extra cash.

“GGFs pending acquisition of The Pirate Bay creates a window of opportunity for the entertainment industry, which has suffered heavy losses due to illegal file sharing. The music industry has been forced against its own will to take tougher measures against illegal file sharing through costly litigation,” Tomas Ericsson of STIM said in a comment.

STIM has for some time been making proposals on how the file-sharing issue can be handled and welcomes GGF’s plans to legalize The Pirate Bay. “STIM is more than happy to contribute with its unique expertise in copyright issues and will be happy to help in this challenging project that will benefit our members,” Ericsson added.

More news on all the changes that will happen to the site, and further details on the business model and subscription fees are likely to be announced at the upcoming press conference.

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

The Canadian Radio, Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is currently looking into the traffic management practices of Canadian ISPs. Several hearings were held to examine the Internet traffic management practices being used, and check that they are in accordance with the Telecommunications Act.

Although not invited to the hearings itself, BitTorrent Inc. filed a late submission (pdf) to the CRTC this week, standing up for Net Neutrality.

“The hearings have clearly exposed some highly discriminatory traffic management targeting the BitTorrent protocol, which is no surprise to our users in Canada,” Simon Morris, BitTorrent’s VP of Product Management told TorrentFreak. “We really hope the regulators will act in the interests of citizens, innovation and free speech, rather than in the narrow interests of monopolies,” he added.

Last year, the company was also actively involved in FCC’s investigation into Comcast’s BitTorrent traffic shaping. Not only are such network management practices a direct threat to BitTorrent’s business model, it also hurts individual users and other businesses.

“Economically, P2P enables a very cost effective means to reach an audience. Fewer computers to buy or provision means that media distribution is no longer the domain of those with deep pockets. P2P allows small Canadian companies, as well as individuals, to distribute their works through the Internet to a global audience at relatively little cost,” BitTorrent writes in its filing to the CRTC.

One other group of victims are independent artists, who publish their work on BitTorrent in increasing numbers. In the hearings the CRTC was already told that blocking or restricting BitTorrent traffic could mean that independent filmmakers are unable to publish their work.

But large companies are in the same boat. “P2P is not just the domain of the independent artists, even major media companies are coming to the realization that P2P technology provides a faster, more efficient, more reliable way to distribute mass media,” BitTorrent writes.

In their filing BitTorrent Inc. mentions CNN’s P2P powered stream of Obama’s inauguration as one example how P2P can benefit large companies. Canadian public TV broadcaster CBC also got a mention, as they used Mininova’s services to distribute

If ISPs have to manage their networks, they shouldn’t target any specific applications or transfer protocols. Discriminating against BitTorrent would hamper innovation and potentially impair freedom of expression, the company told the CRTC.

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

There is no such doubt in South Korea. Today, tough new anti-piracy legislation takes effect which targets illicit file-sharers in a particularly aggressive way. The scheme, hatched by the country’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, gives authorities the power to disconnect pirates for up to 6 months.

However, 3 Strikes for file-sharers is just a small part of the issue.

Although the government insists the rules are targeted at large scale infringers, thanks to a lack of clear boundaries in the legislation – which simply refers to “copyrighted content” – South Korea has extended the 3 Strikes concept to pretty much everyone adding content to the Internet.

According to SKC, the operator of social networking site Cyworld and web portal Nate, any South Korean running a blog or a social networking page will have to be very careful indeed.

In recent days the company has been alerting its users to the new law, notifying them that not only is the sharing of copyright songs, movies and TV shows illegal, but also the use of any copyrighted images or videos. Any of these could earn the infringer a strike.

Any ‘YouTube’-style homemade videos that contain copyrighted music in the background are also banned and will also get you a strike.

And song lyrics. And excerpts from books.

We shall know shortly if the copyright industries behave responsibly with their new found power or if they choose to use it as a weapon of mass disconnection. Either way, South Korea’s enviable broadband position is hardly likely to benefit from the legislation.

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

Although we can safely say that most LimeWire users don’t use the application just for its BitTorrent support, LimeWire could not ignore the popularity of BitTorrent and had no other option than to implement the most used file-sharing protocol back in 2006.

Up until today, LimeWire’s BitTorrent functionality has been rather limited, especially compared to the full-featured BitTorrent clients such as uTorrent, Transmission and Vuze. However, this is all about to change according to the LimeWire team.

LimeWire’s lead developer Sam Berlin told TorrentFreak that they’ve done a complete overhaul of their BitTorrent implementation. The newest release is already available in Beta and now uses Arvid Norberg’s Libtorrent under the hood, which is a significant improvement.

With the implementation of Libtorrent – which is also used by BitTorrent clients such as Deluge, Halite and Miro – Limewire now supports Mainline DHT, UDP tracking, IPv6, HTTP seeding, local peer discovery and uTorrent’s peer exchange

With Libtorrent LimeWire definitely made a step in the right direction that will benefit those who use the application to occasionally download torrents. True to LimeWire’s “ease of use” standards there are very few BitTorrent options to configure, meaning that most new features are simply enabled and can’t be turned off.

Sam Berlin told TorrentFreak that the LimeWire team has no idea how many of their users use the application to download torrents. In a BitTorrent client survey we conducted of 137,797 peers across various swarms only 43 of them were using LimeWire. They must be delighted at the news.

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