Although they didn’t win the award, the evolution of Bitlet continued steadily. After its introduction it added features such as music streaming (currently utilized by mininova) and the ‘bookmarklet‘ which allows users to inject a direct download link into torrent search engines. Today Bitlet adds video streaming to this list, another long awaited addition.

The experimental video streaming feature allows users to stream video using BitTorrent and watch the file, even as it’s still downloading. The first release only supports videos in the Ogg format, but developer Daniele Castagna told TorrentFreak that he might extend this list, depending on how much time he can spend on the project.

In order to make Bitlet work with streaming video a few modifications had to be made, but its still good old BitTorrent technology under the hood. Daniele has put up a few example videos on the site and below them are instructions on how to stream your own files using Bitlet.

There are a few important conditions to fulfill in order to achieve an optimal streaming experience. Of primary importance is the need for sufficient seeds and peers to guarantee a decent download speed. Besides this, the playback time will depend on the quality of the video – the higher the quality, the more bandwidth is needed.

The streaming feature seems to be working well, and it’s actually the first live example of BitTorrent video streaming which doesn’t require the installation of any obscure third party applications. The only thing needed is an up-to-date version of Java, which most people already have installed.

Although current bandwidth prices are dropping, most video services such as YouTube are paying millions of dollars for traditional server side streaming. Especially high quality video is costly to stream, and peer-to-peer technology can certainly make a huge difference there.

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

The 5 minute segment focused on an MPAA funded study by a group called the RAND corporation. The study – which was widely criticized early last month – is back with a new coat of paint. This time though, it’s being broadcast to the movie-going British public with the appearance of solid fact, and has addressed none of the questions we brought up just after the study was released.

Perhaps the choice of interviewees might shed some light on ‘why?’ a bit better.

* Keiron Sharp – Director General, Federation Against Copyright Theft.
* John Woodward – CEO, UK Film Council.
* Gregory Treverton – Director of RAND, the study’s authors.
* Callum McDougall – Executive Producer for Quantum of Solace.

This selection seems to be a bit one sided to say the least. If you’re wondering what’s so special about the last name, it might be because you didn’t go to see that film at the cinema. Just before the film was played, a short advert voiced by Quantum star Daniel Craig, talked about how “piracy was costing people jobs”.

McDougall also gave a speech last winter to a UK copyright industry lobby group saying how the industry will fall “like a house of cards” if downloading continues at current levels. This same group, the Industry Trust for IP Awareness, tried to push much the same message on terrorism and piracy almost 5 years ago.

One of our readers was angered by the bias of the segment and wrote a complaint to the BBC. After a few weeks of waiting a reply came back from BBC Complaints, and it was none too satisfying.

Thank you for your e-mail regarding ‘Film 2009 with Jonathan Ross’ as broadcast on 31 March.

I note you felt the report on this programme about copyright theft wasn’t adequately balanced as it only featured interviews with people from the film industry. I appreciate you felt we allowed a distorted view of this issue to be portrayed and note you have strong views regarding this matter.

This report focused in on a legitimate problem for both the film industry and the authorities as they try to tackle what is an ever increasing and profitable criminal activity. We feel the report outlined the laws surrounding the issue of film piracy adequately and that the interviewees from the film industry were entirely appropriate people to comment on the problem.

Impartiality is the cornerstone of all our output, and we feel this report was fully balanced in it’s coverage of copyright theft. Nevertheless I appreciate our audience has a wide range of opinions and inevitably this means that not every viewer will agree with the content of every programme we broadcast. We know all our editorial decisions are subjective and we’d never expect our audience to agree with every decision we make.

With this in mind that I’d like to take this opportunity to assure you that I’ve recorded your comments, including that you believe this topic deserves a more in depth investigation, onto our audience log. This is an internal daily report of audience feedback which is circulated to many BBC staff including senior management, producers and channel controllers.

The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions about future programming and content.

Thanks again for contacting us.

Regards

Liam Boyle
BBC Complaints

Of course, there’s also a fine piece of irony in this show. The preceding segment was about a film called ‘The Boat That Rocked‘, a film about a 60’s pirate radio station. The irony is that it’s written and directed by one Richard Curtis. The same Richard Curtis that last year co-signed a letter to The Times urging ISPs to stop piracy.

It seems it’s only ok to profit from piracy, if you’re making a film about it.

UPDATE: The video of the segment is now available.

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

Many Swedes were outraged by the harsh sentence that was given and today the Swedish Pirate Party organized a demonstration to support the defendants. The demonstration took place in in Stockholm, and there were similar protests in other Swedish cities.

“Politicians have declared war on our entire generation,” Pirate Party Leader Rick Falkvinge told the crowd, adding. “Our politicians are digital illiterates. We need politicians who can’t be hen-pecked by a foreign power.”

“The Pirate Bay is a completely legitimate service that transmits information between people. After this ruling, no one can feel secure when linking to a YouTube clip on its website,” Daniel Nyström from the Pirate Party said in his speech while the crowd yelled “Free TPB, free TPB!”

The verdict has brought many new members for the Pirate Party, and they hope to get a seat at the European Parliament later this year. Over the past day over 6000 members applied, raising the member count from less than 15,000 up to more than 20,000 making them one of the largest political parties in Sweden.

Tomorrow the Pirate Party has planned another demonstration in the city center of Goteborg, hoping to equal the success of today.

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

Håkan Roswall

Roswall began his statement by saying that Swedish law covers the alleged offenses because The Pirate Bay’s servers were located in Sweden at the time. He also said that people accessing TPB from other countries were breaking the law in Sweden too. As for TPB being classed as a ’service provider’ to get ‘common carrier’ status, Roswall doesn’t believe that it should and therefore there is no need to seek the opinion of the European Court of Justice on the matter. The defense disagreed.

Roswall said he is not asking the court to rule on the legality of BitTorrent itself, but rather what the defendants did with the technology. Turning to the TPB’s tracker, Roswall said that it was a vital part of the infrastructure. He said that the Supreme Court already previously ruled that someone running a BBS (Bulletin Board) could be found guilty of assisting copyright infringement and that TPB should be viewed in this light.

Turning to the defendants, Roswall said that Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm already admitted their part in the running of TPB. He said Fredrik’s role was technical and he also registered the TPB domain name, while Gottfrid also handled technical issues including the programming of the tracker and some billing duties.

Roswall doesn’t believe Peter Sunde’s line that he is just the site’s spokesman. He said that Peter is deeply involved with the site, referring to claims Peter configured load balancers for the site and noted that advertiser Daniel Oded communicated with Fredrik and Gottfrid through Peter. Roswall said that this was a sign Peter was co-ordinating some operations. He also said that Peter helped to design and develop the site and had contact with some advertisers.

Roswall referred to Carl Lundström as the financier of the site and pointed to various emails where Lundström communicated with the others about the legality of the operation. While the defense said this was a good thing – that the site wanted to remain within the law – the prosecution are using this to say that Lundström was behind everything. Roswall also said that the claims that Fredrik worked for free in order to get services for TPB from Lundström was simply made up to help their case.

Next the site’s finances were discussed by Roswall. Damages are easy to calculate he said, by simply referring to the site’s own download statistics. In an attempt to quantify how much money TPB made, he used his own best guesses based on how much he thought the ads on the site cost multiplied by an estimated number of impressions. He came to the conclusion that TPB turned over some 11.6 million kroner. After a few more calculations, Roswall declared the site made at least 5 million kroner, and probably more like 10 million, to which Gottfrid responded, “Where is my ten million, please, I want it, where is it?”

Earlier in the case, the defense asked why the Prosecution did not try to track down the actual infringers/seeders of the works mentioned in the trial. Roswall notes that this was impossible since their identities were protected under Swedish law. However, now that IPRED has been passed, tracking people will be much easier in future.

Roswall called for a confiscation of TPB hardware, noting that the chances of the site infringing again are high. He based this on the fact that TPB was up and running just 3 days after the original police raids. He finished by demanding jail for all four defendants.

“I believe that the correct punishment is a year in prison and that is what I ask from the judge in this case,” he said.

Gottfrid Swartholm comments

During one of the cigarette breaks, defendant Gottfrid Swartholm didn’t seem to be impressed by the prosecutor’s claim. “I’m surprised that the crazy old man didn’t exaggerate more! I’d counted on him demanding two years in prison but it only was one!”

Peter Danowsky for the IFPI

Next up to make his closing statement was Peter Danowsky of the IFPI. He began by saying that the trial is not about file-sharing technology, but about how it is used to infringe copyright. The goal is to find out whether or not the defendants have broken the law, and if so, what their punishment should be. Danowsky said he knew that there are other sites that engage in similar practices, but said that these are irrelevant to this case.

Comparing TPB to Google doesn’t make any sense according to Danowsky, because Google is working with the rights holders to prevent piracy. TPB on the other hand constantly mocks rights holders. Danowsky further added that the number of [torrent files linking to] copyrighted works on TPB is much greater than the prosecutor decided to bring in as evidence.

Danowsky went on to state that TPB offers a service that is very similar to that offered by legal online music stores. However, TPB doesn’t charge for the music and keeps the advertizing revenue to themselves instead of compensating the rights holders. Neij, Svartholm, Sunde and Lundström have contributed to copyright infringement according to Danowsky, and the record labels have to be compensated for the losses they have caused – in sales and in goodwill.

The testimony of media Professor Roger Wallis, who stated that the entertainment industry doesn’t suffer any losses from piracy, is debatable Danowsky said. Instead, he puts more trust in the record company executives he consulted in the past. “Wallis’ 30 percent guest professorship at KTH provides about as much credibility as something on par with a newspaper editorial,” said Danowsky.

He further said that physical piracy is exactly the same as illicit file-sharing according to the music industry lawyer, it is simply utilizing newer technology.

Danowsky went on to note that TPB was founded by the Pirate Bureau, an organization that has only one purpose: “Not to respect copyright.” Next, Danowsky stressed that TPB is a commercial operation and he mentioned some previous court rulings related to file sharing, including the Finreactor case. After that the court took a lunch break.

Henrik Pontén from Antipiratbyrån

After the lunch break Henrik Pontén makes his final plea, which is short compared to Danowsky. Pontén claims that the defendants clearly knew that what they were doing was illegal, and that they could have expected prison sentences. He further said that TPB clearly operates as a business, making money from advertising revenue.

The damages claim should cover the loss in revenue for the entertainment industry, as well as the damage in goodwill that the site has caused, Pontén noted. He continued saying that imprisonment is needed in order to stop TPB from operating, and said that a conviction will deter others from infringing copyright.

The police can’t possibly go after all TPB’s users and the defendants are therefore responsible for the whole damage claim, he argued, adding that they are free to claim money from their users. “It’s easy to come in contact with the users by leaving a message in the comments field,” Pontén said ending his closing statement.

Monique Wadsted for the movie companies

Finally Monique Wadsted took the stand for her closing comments. She said that the defendants are not as innocent as they claim to be and said that what they do is even worse than individuals who share copyrighted material. The made money off their file sharing platform while ignoring the copyright holders, she said.

Wadsted also mentioned other filesharing related cases in Scandinavia, and according to prosecutor Håkan Roswall these cases are relevant because the copyright laws in the different countries are very similar.

Neij, Sunde and Swartholm play different roles, Wadsted acknowledged, but they were all aware that there were [links to] copyrighted material hosted on the site. Peter Sunde, who claims to be the spokesperson, nothing more, has intended to sell to statistics from The Pirate bay, and it is clear that he knew about the copyrighted material since he he proposed to introduce “TV shows” category, Wadsted added.

Wadsted called for a “very significant” prison sentence because the dependents were aware of their criminal acts and made money from it. She also feared that they will simply continue to operate the site if they’re not punished properly.

“They have made more than 10 million crowns in revenue during one year [during the period the charges relate to]. And they continue to run the operation in spite of being convicted in other countries. Furthermore, they spit on the rights holders and tell them to go to hell,” Wadsted said.

They should have a tangible prison sentence. There is no reason to make any difference between them in the sentence. They are all guilty of severe infringements,” she added. Wadsted ended by rationalizing the damages they request. She said that the entertainment industry representatives are not “bloodthirsty beasts” but that the compensation they ask for is only fair.

The trial will continue tomorrow with the closing statements of the defense.

Developing story…

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

Roswall then inquired about Peter’s involvement in TPB’s advertising deals, in particular one with ad company Random Media which Peter signed up to as a ‘Founder’ of the site. Peter said that this was connected with new website project which would draw funds from TPB’s adverttising revenue.

Roswall then brought up Piratbyran – the Swedish Bureau of Piracy – and asked Peter if this organization is critical of copyright. “Not critical directly,” Peter replied. “There are many differing views.”

Roswall then turned to Peter’s stance toward copyright. “This is a difficult question to answer,” Peter said. “I like things that are not protected by copyright, this is a non-issue.”

Peter was asked if he knew of TPB’s “legal” page. He said he was aware of it. Roswall, presumably trying to speak the same ‘language’ as the somewhat techie defendants, got tied up a little;

“When did you meet [Gottfrid] for the first time IRL?” asked the Prosecutor. “We do not use the expression IRL,” said Peter, “We use AFK.” “IRL?” questioned the judge. “In Real Life,” the Prosecutor explained to the judge.

“We do not use that expression,” Peter noted. “Everything is in real life. We use AFK – Away From Keyboard.” “Well,” said Roswall. “It seems I am a little bit out of date.”

One of the themes so far is how the Prosecutor is struggling to come to terms with the somewhat chaotic structure of the TPB’s operations. Trying to pin down Peter’s role, he asked about his position as TPB spokesman – Peter said he took the unofficial position since no-one else in the team wanted to do it. A request from a journalist or someone else for a comment on something came in, said Peter, and he simply took it in hand.

Then the attention turned to Peter’s relationship with advertiser Oded Daniel and whether or not Peter has handled money from him. “Have you never wondered why you got these earnings reports? Isn’t this type of thing a little beyond your role of spokesman?” asked Roswall.

“I think it is his [Oded Daniel's] way of trying to motivate people. He sends so much weird email, I don’t read half of it. He could have been using me to get more contact with Fredrik and Gottfrid,” said Peter. The Prosecutor continued to struggle with the apparent lack of a formal decision-making structure at TPB, continually referring to TPB as a “company”.

It was revealed that Peter and Gottfrid met Oded Daniel in 2005/2006. Carl Lundström and Peter Sunde met just a handful of times.

“Is it true you went to Israel to meet Oded in 2006?” said Roswall. “Yes,” responded Peter.

“Why did you go to meet him?” questioned Roswall. “Because he asked me to go there as his guest,” said Peter. “Did you not go there to go to the beach?” “Yes, I did, very often.”

Roswall then questioned Peter on many emails back and forth from Oded Daniel to TPB, many centered on the proposed TPB YouTube-like side-project for streaming video called VideoBay. Referring to development of the search capability on TPB, the Prosecutor appeared to be suggesting that Peter worked on TPB on technical issues in a response to mails from Oded Daniel, but Peter said that others carried out the work.

At one stage Peter said he came up with the idea of selling statistics from TPB, believing people would be interested to read them in newspapers etc. When Roswall asked Peter if he ever expected to receive money from TPB, the answer was “no”.

After the break, it was IFPI’s Peter Danowsky turn to start questioning Peter, beginning with his education. Peter says he dropped out of school but later learned English and computer programming from the Internet. Danowsky then turned his attention to ad-company Random Media, again referring to emails from TPB.

Then, in a repeat of yesterday’s performance, the Prosecution started again to introduce more evidence that had not been cleared pre-trial. Danowsky continued to present new evidence in the form of some newspaper articles to try to contradict what Peter had said.

According to multiple reports, not only was the defense annoyed at the Prosecution’s unacceptable actions, but the judge was too. The judge reprimanded Danowsky and the defense told him to cut out this American-style trial strategy. The Court then adjourned for 10 minutes to discuss the situation.

Upon restart, the judge said the decision is that any new material the Prosecution is planning to bring up needs to be submitted before the questioning has started, as is proper. The Prosecution then claimed to hand over all their surprise material they were holding and the Court took another break so that Peter could read through everything. This was later confirmed to be 9 new documents.

After the break Danowsky’s questioning of Peter resumed. “Did you hold a lecture called “How to dismantle a billion dollar industry?” “Yes I did,” replied Peter.

Danowsky started to quote some of Peter’s comments from his blog at Brokep.com. Peter says that everything he writes on his blog isn’t about TPB even if prosecutors would like it to be the case.

Pressed further on his opinions on copyright, Peter asked Danowsky, “That is a political issue. Is this a political trial or a legal trial?” Danowsky continued, ignoring the question but Peter pulled him back. “I want an answer from the lawyer Danowsky. Is this a political trial? Can I get a reply?”

“How can copyright law be a political issue?” said Danowsky, but had no follow up questions. Peter was surprised, “No follow-ups? Ok, let me elaborate…” and he went on at length about the context of Danowsky’s various questions.

Danowsky asked Peter about a time when he said that rights holders had acted illegally. Peter said this was a reference to Warner Brothers that had attacked file-sharing sites with hacking, aka anti-p2p activity.

Danowsky asked Peter what the purpose of TPB was. “It is to enable users to share their material with others,” said Peter. “Even though it is copyrighted?” questioned Danowsky. “That can sometimes be the sad consequences,” Peter replied.

After a brief appearance by movie company lawyer Wadsted, the court stopped for lunch.

On return, Peter Altin questioned his client, Peter Sunde. He asked him if he was responsible for TPB or if he felt responsible due to his comments for the site. On both, the reply was negative.

Altin put it to Peter that he could’ve made lots of money from TPB. “No, I don’t have a million sitting around somewhere. That would be nice, though.”

When Altin asked about the amount of copyright material tracked by TPB, Peter explained that he carried out a survey of a random 1000 torrents from the tracker and 80% of the content linked by the site was not copyrighted, noting that there is much more illegal material on YouTube.

Then Altin’s interview with Carl Lundström began. He told the court how he met Fredrik at an event called Dreamhack in Jönköping, Sweden during 2004. The Court heard that Lundström always believed that TPB operated within the law but they needed resources. This situation led to him signing an agreement with Fredrik that they could have two computers at Rix Telecom in Gothenburg, along with him being a technician there. The deal would allow TPB to develop with a little financial support from Lundström, and then when the site grew and became a success, TPB would stay with Rix and pay their way as a regular customer.

Next it was Roswall’s turn to interview Lundström. Lundström admitted that he knew that there was piracy connected with TPB, and that he understood that TPB is a “file-sharing site, a torrent site”.

Speaking of the advertising he took responsibility for the plan believing it was a way the site could pay for itself in the future. He went on to say that he had no idea of any political motivations of the site and what interested him was the desire of the other defendants to make the biggest BitTorrent site in the world. “And I liked that,” he said.

“I can understand that,” replied Roswall.

Then followed discussion about the equipment given to TPB by Lundström. The cost of the equipment was 18,000 kronor and the bill was paid by Lundström. Lundström made clear that he didn’t want to become a partner, but that he did continue to be interested in the project, and that he gave some advise to the TPB team a few times.

After a short break Lundström was further questioned by the prosecution. They asked him about his contact with Oded Daniel, who handles advertisement on TPB. Lundström admitted to know Oded very well.

When movie industry lawyer Wadsted asked Lundström why an 48 year old businessman hangs out with people from TPB his lawyer jumped in and told his client not to respond.

At 3 o’clock in the afternoon the hearings ended, after discussing next week’s schedule.

This is a developing story, check back for updates

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

Carl Lundström’s lawyer Per E Samuelsson continued with his client’s defense, reiterating the weakness of the links between him and the other defendants, and The Pirate Bay operation as a whole. Samuelsson also pointed to Lundström’s email correspondence in 2005 with Gottfrid and Fredrik, where they discussed the possibility of having to move the site to another country. This, he said, was an indication that the defendants kept an eye on the changes in the law and were mindful that they should operate legally within it.

In the meantime, it came to the court’s attention that Tobias Andersson, a future witness in the case, was sitting in the court. He was asked to leave the room, with permission to continue listening on the audio feed next door. He will testify later on.

After a break, the court’s attention switched to Fredrik Neij (TiAMO). The court heard that Fredrik was never a member of Piratbyran and he had no ideological motivation to join TPB. Instead, Fredrik was attracted to the site by the BitTorrent technology. He joined to “..play with The Pirate Bay, just as I wanted,” he said.

The defense said that Fredrik was always mindful of the law and had a desire to operate within it, consulting lawyers to ensure his activities were legal.

In a reference to companies like MediaDefender, Fredrik noted that “anti-p2p companies access our tracker and manipulate our statistics.” He said that although a torrent may have only been uploaded once, these anti-p2p activities inflate the stats on the tracker to indicate that more transfers took place than in reality.

Fredrik was then questioned about his relationship with advertiser Oded Daniel. When the prosecution asked if Oded was involved in the technical aspects of TPB, Fredrik replied.. “No, he’s not good at that. He uses Windows, so…” There was laughter heard on the live audio feed after that remark, not from the court room, but from the listening lounge next door where the bloggers are situated.

Fredrik was asked about the significance of the site’s name, but shrugged and repeated that his interest is merely in the technology.

Fredrik was further questioned by Håkan Roswall, with the Prosecutor pointing out that during his police interview, Fredrik admitted that there may be links to copyright works on TPB. Fredrik said he knew about these due to the legal complaints the site received, noting that the complaints referred only to inapplicable US laws. He went on to deny having received any of these personally, but while he admitted he seen them, he denied creating any of the infamous responses.

Roswall asked Fredrik if he had ever been a seeder on the site. Fredrik admitted to seeding torrents but noted that he only did this with copyright-free material.

When questioned about the situation of some torrents being removed from the site due to bad labeling, the court heard from the defense that TPB site is uncensored, with thousands of new torrents added every day and it is an impossible task to review them all. The tracker is completely open and anyone can and does add to it regularly, completely without any input or correspondence with TPB staff.

Just before lunch, Monique Wadsted for the movie companies took over questioning Fredrik. After a discussion over the way emails are handled at The Pirate Bay, out of the blue she began to introduce new evidence which had not previously been disclosed to the defense, in what is being viewed as an attempt to unsettle Fredrik.

She asked about Fredrik’s connections to other torrent sites, namely OscarTorrents and EurovisionTorrents and he denied being personally connected to them. Noting the breach of protocol, the judge asked if it was acceptable for the court to be considering evidence that was not already presented pre-trial. Monique Wadsted tried to shout down the judge, but that didn’t really help much. The court then took a break.

After the lunch break IFPI’s lawyer Peter Danowsky continued with Fredrik’s questioning. He tried to pin something on him, but Fredrik pointed out that the email he’s referring to is a reply, and that the quotes mean that he didn’t write that part of the email.

Fredrik’s lawyer is next up to ask questions, and the prosecution was educated on the subject of open BitTorrent trackers, BitTorrent swarms and the fact that torrent files can be distributed through means other than the TPB, like email or FTP.

Then the Prosecutor handed over a printed page from TPB and said: “This is a printout from a part of your web page. You call this a screenshot?” Fredrik answered: “This isn’t a screenshot, just a printed page.” Fredrik then explains what’s on the print (a Pink Panther torrent), and how the upload process on TPB works.

Next it’s Gottfrid’s turn to answer questions. The prosecution emphasizes the financial issues, and specifically the link with Oded. When asked if Gottfrid was in charge of ad sales he answered: “No, I tried to get away from that because of time issues. I had a business to run before you came and took it all away.”

The prosecution further questioned Gottfrid about moderation issues, replies to copyright holders and his involvement in developing the site. The prosecutor pushed hard on whether Peter Sunde had worked on the layout and graphics for the site. “To my knowledge, he is neither designer nor graphic artist,” Gottfried replied.

Wadsted later asked Gottfrid how they handle torrents that (allegedly) link to child porn. He said that in such a case they would inform the police. She then asked if they removed those torrents. He said “some”. “Not all?” was Wadsted’s reply. Gottfrid explained that it is not up to them to investigate crimes, but that they do inform the police. “We can’t do investigations of our own. And if the police say we should remove a torrent, we will,” he said.

Gottfrid further said that Peter Sunde has nothing to do with technical administration, design, layout, ad sales or any hands-on stuff with the site. He’s just been a spokesperson for The Pirate Bay. “Neither me or Neij work well in furnished rooms. Peter was better on the verbal issues and media,” he said.

Around 4 PM the Prosecutor announced that he wanted to bring in additional evidence, some actual torrent files on a diskette (he probably meant CD). The Prosecutor demanded a statement on it at 9 in the morning tomorrow. The defense wasn’t too happy about this, and Gottfrid demanded all torrents instead of four.

Update:Just a passing thought…..While Wadsted may have thought she was being clever mentioning possible child porn tracked by The Pirate Bay earlier, it’s not beyond reason that when Gottfrid said that they don’t remove all such torrents, this could be on the instruction of the police – presumably so they can track any offenders. In this situation, the police must understand that Pirate Bay neither committed any offense, nor encouraged it, nor know the people involved. Is there something important here? I guess the court will decide.

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

The trial began roughly half an hour later. Prosecutor Håkan Roswall read out the charges that can be best summarized as “commercial copyright infringement”. The plaintiffs are Warner Bros, MGM, EMI, Colombia Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Sony BMG and Universal. Lundström’s lawyer pointed out that the prosecutor may have drawn up some charges incorrectly. Interestingly, Lundström is the only one of the defendants with two lawyers, one of which is a copyright expert.

Fredrik, Gottfrid and Peter stated their defense. They all pleaded not guilty.

Roswall then went on to present the claims of the media outfits, and described how The Pirate Bay works, with a little bit of history. He went on till the lunch break, but meanwhile Rick Falkvinge of the Pirate Party couldn’t resist accessing The Pirate Bay site from his seat in the courtroom.

The prosecution said that TPB was aimed at Swedish users until late 2004, when Fredrik had contact with Carl Lundström. They say Lundström helped them develop the project by donating funds and resources to enable the growth of the site.

The prosecution suggested that The Pirate Bay was a commercial organization, with Carl Lundström as a shareholder and financier of the company.

They also said that The Pirate Bay investigated the possibility of moving to Argentina after concerns over changes in Swedish copyright law during 2005. The prosecution claimed there were plans with Carl Lundström to set up a company in British Virgin Islands.

Discussion ensued over the advertising on The Pirate Bay site, and the involvement of one Daniel Oded and companies Random Media and Transworld Advertising.

Following the lunch break, proceedings continued with prosecutor Håkan Roswall failing to start up his computer. For several minutes, listeners of the live audio could hear mouse-clicks as Roswall, who earlier claimed to be an expert on computer crimes, tried to get his PowerPoint presentation on the screen. He was eventually ordered by the judge to stick to his papers and continue.

Information was presented about various movie, music and game downloads co-ordinated by The Pirate Bay before the raid in 2006. Roswall further discussed the total number of seeds and peers on the tracker, all part of the evidence that was previously gathered by the plaintiffs.

During the afternoon, Peter Sunde sent a message: “How the hell did they think this was going to be something else than EPIC FAIL for the prosecution? We’re winning so hard.” Peter points out that the prosecutor is having difficulty working out the difference between megabits and megabytes.

The case was adjourned around 4pm, and will continue tomorrow morning.

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

Duc Do, was found guilty of uploading the movies Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Flight of the Phoenix and King Arthur to a seedbox, for the benefit of the site’s members

Unlike previous defendants Scott McCausland and Grant Stanley, Duc Do escapes a jail sentence. Instead, after pleading guilty to conspiracy and copyright infringement charges, the former Drexel University student was given 3 years probation, a $15,000 fine and 400 hours of community service.

According to prosecutor Floyd Miller, Duc Do wasn’t as dedicated as other uploaders on Elite: “They threatened to kick him out of the organization because he wasn’t uploading as much as some of the other pirates were doing,” he said.

However, despite escaping jail, the future doesn’t look immediately bright for Duc Do. After getting a degree in computer science from Drexel University, he later landed a job at the worlds largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin, developing military war-games. This conviction means that Duc Do will have to resign from his job.

Other convictions in the case include those of Daniel Dove who was recently jailed for 18 months. Site admin Grant Stanley, then aged 23, pleaded guilty to the same offenses as Scott and received the same sentence and a $3,000 fine. Other admins and uploaders who also pleaded guilty include Sam Kuonen, then aged 24, and 22 year old Scott D. Harvanek.

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

Daniel Dove, one of the arrested administrators of the Elitetorrents tracker initially opted for a ‘not guilty’ plea, but his gamble didn’t pay off. The jury was told that Dove was responsible for managing and recruiting the crucial ‘uploaders’ on the site (original seeders) and that he also operated a server which was used to distribute pirate material.

The jury believed this version of events and found Dove guilty on one count each of conspiracy and felony copyright infringement. Today, Dove has was sentenced to 18 months in prison, three years of supervised release and a $20,000 fine.

Dove is the only administrator of Elitetorrents to plead “not guilty”. In 2006, Scott McCausland pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of criminal copyright infringement for his uploading of Star Wars: Episode III.

McCausland received jail time and home confinement and on his release told TorrentFreak: “After 5 months in prison, and another 5 months on home confinement, I have just one obstacle left: my 1.5 years left of probation.”

Fellow site admin Grant Stanley, then aged 23, pleaded guilty to the same offenses as Scott and received the same sentence with the addition of a $3,000 fine. Other admins and uploaders who pleaded guilty include Sam Kuonen, then aged 24, 22 year old Scott D. Harvanek and An Duc Do, aged 25.

Dove’s sentence is the eighth resulting from Operation D-Elite but this federal crackdown didn’t end up causing a decrease in overall private BitTorrent tracker availability. Instead, soon after the raids the Elitetorrents members spread out to other trackers, the major difference is that most of them are now hosted outside the US.

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

The page was so crude that it gave the tens of thousands of worried users a little relief – if the FBI was really behind the shutdown they would’ve made a better job of the page design than this, surely? The conclusion I reached along with many others was that this was the work of hackers. Site staff reported that the DNS had been hacked, which at the time was actually relatively good news, as reports started to come in that the site now traced to the Department of Homeland Security.

For many sci-fi fans the site downtime was really badly timed, as they (and just about everyone else) were desperate to get on the site to get the leaked ‘ViSA‘ workprint copy of Star Wars: Episode III. But as time passed you could feel the mood change. Most people knew deep down something was wrong but just didn’t want to admit it. Operation D-Elite had been and now EliteTorrents was gone.

When the confirmation came, it did so via a notice in the site’s IRC channel: “A few of the admins have been raided by the FBI, sorry, but ET [EliteTorrents] is now closed”, closely followed by an announcement by Acting Assistant Attorney General John C. Richter of the Criminal Division, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement Michael J. Garcia, and Assistant Director Louis M. Reigel of the FBI’s Cyber Division:

This morning, agents of the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed 10 search warrants across the United States against leading members of a technologically sophisticated P2P network known as Elite Torrents. Employing technology known as BitTorrent, the Elite Torrents network attracted more than 133,000 members and, in the last four months, allegedly facilitated the illegal distribution of more than 17,800 titles – including movies and software – which were downloaded 2.1 million times.

BitTorrent sites had been shut down before in the United States, such as the LokiTorrent case, but none had been closed down by the FBI – something had changed. The recently introduced Family Entertainment and Copyright Act meant that when EliteTorrents admin Sk0t uploaded Star Wars: Episode III, he didn’t just commit a civil infringement, it was now a serious crime. The huge popularity of the movie meant it was downloaded at least 10,000 times during the first 24 hours with some claiming in the region of 20,000 downloads worldwide, and this was reportedly enough for the MPAA to finally lose its patience and make good on its successful infiltration of the site.

The federal agents involved in the case executed 10 warrants and took control of the server. In a recent interview, Scott McCausland, aka sk0t, an administrator of the site told Slyck: “Star Wars was uploaded… and then it was game over. I awoke one morning to see the FBI warning on the ET site, and thought to myself “Damn, I think we are screwed.” It didn’t dawn on me at the time that I could be a target. I didn’t upload a lot, just a couple movies. But I did Star Wars, so… Then, at 6AM I am woken up to the sounds of 6 FBI, 6 ICE, and 2 Local Police at my front door. They come in, confiscate everything, and that begins my 2+ years saga.”

In the BitTorrent community many people were absolutely furious at the loss of their favorite site, with a passion not seen since the demise of Suprnova. Thousands of others were panicking. Forums and IRC were awash with theories of who had been arrested so far and who would be targeted next by the FBI, and why. Would it be limited to admins? What about the uploaders? Would regular users be chased down? In the end, around 130,000 users had nothing to worry about but some admins and uploaders weren’t so lucky.

In 2006, Scott McCausland pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of criminal copyright infringement for his uploading of Star Wars: Episode III. He received jail time and home confinement and on his release told TorrentFreak: “After 5 months in prison, and another 5 months on home confinement, I have just one obstacle left: my 1.5 years years left of probation.”

Fellow site admin Grant Stanley, then aged 23, pleaded guilty to the same offenses as Scott and received the same sentence with the addition of a $3,000 fine. Other admins and uploaders who pleaded guilty included Sam Kuonen, then aged 24, 22 year old Scott D. Harvanek and An Duc Do, aged 25.

Not everyone arrested in connection with the case pleaded guilty. Daniel Dove, an administrator of the site, opted for a ‘not guilty’ plea. For Dove, the gamble hasn’t paid off. The jury was told that Dove was responsible for managing and recruiting the crucial ‘uploaders’ on the site (original seeders) and that he also operated a server which was used to distribute pirate material. The jury believed it and found him guilty on one count each of conspiracy and felony copyright infringement.

Dove will be sentenced on September 9th 2008 where he, like some of the other admins, faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail, but is likely to receive substantially less.

Historically, the EliteTorrents case is an important one. Many BitTorrent trackers used to be hosted in the United States, but had been essentially scared or pressured to leave, largely due to direct or indirect MPAA pressure. Right up until the creation of the Family Entertainment Act, any action against sites would have taken place in the civil domain. The act coming into force gave the FBI the green light to get involved, much to the delight of the MPAA who possessed significant investigative powers but lacked the killer ability to quickly shut down a non-compliant site.

The MPAA loves to issue a stream of data about how much piracy went on at EliteTorrents (and a lot did go on), but it was the seeding of a movie, a single pre-release movie that eventually killed the entire site and caused the imprisonment of the admin team. Clearly the leak did nothing to hurt the movie as it went on to gross nearly $110m in its first weekend and has nearly reached a worldwide total of $1bn. But we knew that anyway.

Despite the massive resources at the disposal of the FBI and supposed importance of the case, the person that originally leaked the Episode 3 workprint copy direct from Lucas is nowhere to be seen.

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

The five, using names such as iced, kidzapped, niterangr and tcut, were caught as part of ‘Operation Higher Education’ – a component of ‘Operation Fastlink‘ – and are all charged with conspiracy.

According to a report, Dominic Tymorek, a 53 year-old from Woodstock, Georgia, and 57 year-old Robert Hardick, of Getzville, N.Y., face three counts. Steven Fiatarone, a 55 year-old from Spring Hill, Florida and 43-year-old Michael Uszakow, of Oakdale, Minn., face two counts and William Parrott, of Roanoke Rapids, N.C., faces one count.

If convicted, the men face up to five years in prison and fines up to $250,000 on each count.

At the same time, 25 year-old Daniel Jaeger, aka ‘Microeguy’ of Wappinger, New York, waived his right to indictment and pleaded guilty before Magistrate Judge Donna F. Martinez in Hartford. Jaeger admitted to being a ’scene member’ for two years and building and running an FTP server known as ‘DataStream’ (DS), used for the distribution of pirated material.

Jaeger admitted that he knew that those accused along with him had uploaded pirate material to both ‘DataStream’ and another FTP site known as ‘Arakis’ (AKS)

Jaeger also faces five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

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

We first introduced BitLet back in July 2007.

BitLet is a web-based Java applet which makes it possible to download .torrent files on a computer that doesn’t have a BitTorrent client installed, which is fantastic for people who either can’t, or don’t know how to, install additional software. The site isn’t just clear and functional, it’s incredibly easy to use too – simply enter the url of the .torrent file you wish to use and sit back and wait for your chosen material to download.

In recognition of this innovative site, the editors over at CNET Webware.com have chosen BitLet to be a finalist in the Webware 100 Awards 2008. This is quite an achievement considering the heavyweights who came out on top in 2007, such as Bebo, Gmail, MySpace, Wikipedia and YouTube. BitLet is nominated in the Security and Utility division.

For the 2008 contest, a total of 4,600 Web 2.0 services were nominated by Webware readers and from these, a lucky 300 finalists were selected, including BitLet, of course.

Other BitTorrent related services were also nominated. BitTorrent.com itself was nominated along with Pando, and the Firefox based AllPeers. Sadly, AllPeers bit the dust so will no longer be included.

Alessandro and Daniele of BitLet told TorrentFreak: “We are really proud of this achievement. Being chosen as one of the finalists is a huge acknowledgment for an application like BitLet. When we started to develop the applet we wanted to support BitTorrent content distribution by creating an extremely simple tool to allow anyone to download files with just one click. We may not have achieved that precise objective (yet :P) but Webware’s nomination, in addition to the good feedback we receive from our users, encourages us to keep working on new features and improving the existing ones.”

Indeed, BitLet has been evolving since its introduction, adding features such as the BitLet ‘Upload‘ section which adds torrent creation to the service, the music streaming feature which is also used by Mininova, and the ‘bookmarklet‘ which allows the user to inject a direct download link into torrent search engines.

BitLet’s features add up to one of the most innovative BitTorrent related services, and a worthy addition to the Webware 100 finalists list.

If you’d like to vote for BitLet -30 million BitTorrent users voting should do the job- you can do so right up until March 31, by clicking here.

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

The second half of today’s hearing (pdf link) started with a number of network and technological experts telling us about the Internet, its history, and its makeup. Of main contention was the line between acceptable, and unacceptable traffic management.

Wise things were said, and the panelists made some good points about the unfairness of the traffic management tools that Comcast uses. There was emphasis on the TCP reset, which means that a few seconds after you connect to someone in a BitTorrent swarm, a peer reset message (RST flag) is sent by Comcast and the upload immediately stops.

Richard Bennett (co-inventor of the twisted-pair system for ethernet, and its protocol, 1BASE5) targeted those opposed to any sort of traffic management in his opening statement saying, “if we can’t control network management, we’ll have to shut down the internet”. David Clark, of the MIT computer science lab, opened by saying that ISPs can either see enemies, or they can see partners, and suggesting that right now, they see the former. He, like almost all the panelists, called the current usage of Sandvine technology ‘troubling’, and said that the user should pick the Quality of Service (QoS) level, not an ISP.

Daniel Weitzner, Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Decentralized Information Group summed up bad traffic management with: “Maybe it’s a bit like the old adage about pornography ‘I know it when I see it’. In this case I know what Comcast is doing is in the camp of unreasonable. These are techniques that hackers would use to deny service to any application on the web, very similar in that regard. It might be interesting to hold a panel of security experts to talk about those kind of mechanisms, I’m certainly not one. But, forging data on the internet is probably outside of the realm of reasonable, and any standards body would deem it to be.”

However, one of the most succinct criticisms of Comcast’s actions came from Prof. David Reed, of MIT’s Media Lab, who suggested that any ISP that didn’t follow the standard solutions evolved over the last 30 years should not advertise themselves as an Internet provider, but instead as a company “offering selective access to portions of the net only”, a description many of Comcast’s customers will probably agree with.

The FCC questioner continued the panel discussion, and pointed out that one of the problems might be that there is no actual data on how busy the network was, something that, from his point of view, would be helpful in determining whether the TCP resets are a unreasonable form of network management or not.

One of the panelists (sorry, they all sound the same) immediately replied to this by pointing out that congestion was not important. He compared the TCP reset to a conversation between two people where a third party – who pretends to be one of the persons engaged in the conversation – says “Stop, this conversation is over”. He added: “I find it uncomfortable that someone in the middle is creating a message to you that appears to come from me, I have a lot of trouble with that.”

At the beginning of the hearing FCC chairman Kevin Martin said that they were willing to step in if needed. Let’s hope they will. Feel free to file a comment if you want to let the FCC know what you think of Comcast’s haxxor skills. A video of the hearing will be available within two days.

Stay tuned.

Update: Apparently Comcast has paid people to attend the hearing to keep concerned citizens out.

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

Soon it became known that a shadowy group known as MediaDefender-Defenders appeared to be behind the attack – they host the Media Defender emails on their website to this day, but little was known about the chain events, or who was behind them – until now.

In an interview with portfolio, the hacker (using the pseudonym ‘Ethan’) explains how things led up to the leak. Ethan, a polite high-school student who lives with his family, was on his Christmas break when he first gained access to the anti-piracy companies servers by exploiting a weakness in their firewall. This was the end of 2006, at a time when business was still good for Media Defender, with revenue standing at nearly $16m.

The interviewer, Daniel Roth, says he communicated with Ethan on pre-pay phone to ensure security. Meeting after school in a local bookstore, Ethan handed over a flash drive holding confidential Media Defender information, explaining that the initial security breach hadn’t amounted to much and that he had difficulty in gaining the interest of fellow hackers. However, a few months later Ethan decided to go back and take a second look – which bore more fruit – giving him access to the company’s email, it’s networked resources and even its telephone system. He then explains how he passed on some of the information to a fellow hacker who gained access to Media Defender servers and used them for denial-of-service attacks.

Logging in a handful of times each month through the summer of 2007, Ethan started to get bored with ‘Monkey Defenders’ – his pet name for the anti-piracy outfit. Deciding to go out with a bang, he and the Media Defender-Defenders gathered thousands of the company’s internal emails and published them on web.

A text file included with the emails stated: “By releasing these emails we hope to secure the privacy and personal integrity of all peer-to-peer users. The emails contains information about the various tactics and technical solutions for tracking p2p users, and disrupt p2p services,” and “A special thanks to Jay Maris, for circumventing there entire email-security by forwarding all your emails to your gmail account”

Just days later, slamming the anti-piracy company again and again seemed to be the aim of Ethan and friends, as they released a private telephone conversation with the New York attorney general’s office, a P2P tracking database, followed a few days later by all of Media Defender’s anti-piracy tools.

Ethan said that he didn’t set out to ruin Media Defender: “In the beginning, I had no motivation against Monkey Defenders” he said. “It wasn’t like, ‘I want to hack those bastards’. But then I found something, and the good nature in me said, These guys are not right. I’m going to destroy them.”

Ethan, who is now sought after by the FBI because of the leaked emails, is getting close to this goal. It all went downhill for MediaDefender after the leaks got out. In November it turned out that MediaDefender’s parent company ArtistDirect lost almost $1,000,000 because of the hack, and their stock price plunged soon after that.

To make it even worse, a week after the sensitive information was made public, the Pirate Bay launched a counterattack against their arch rival. They decided to use the information from the emails to file charges against some of MediaDefenders customers including Paramount Home Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox and Universal Music Group for corrupting and sabotaging their BitTorrent tracker.

There is no doubt that the pirates have won this battle, and it will be very hard for MediaDefender to regain their credibility. To quote MediaDefender CEO Randy Saaf: “This is really fucked…”. Yes, I’m afraid it is Randy.

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

Currently, WeStream supports OGG and MP3 encoded audio files, but more file types will be included in the near future.

There are a few important conditions to achieve an optimal streaming experience. Most importantly, there should be enough seeds and peers to guarantee a decent download speed. Besides this, the playback time will depend on the filesize of the tracks – the higher the bitrate, the more bandwidth is needed.

Below is an example of WeStream for a torrent from Mininova’s featured torrents section. By clicking on this link you can load it in your web browser.

From a technical viewpoint, WeStream prioritizes the bits at the beginning of each song, otherwise it will be impossible to stream anything before the entire track is downloaded. However, like most other BitTorrent clients, it also gives a high priority to rare pieces in order to guarantee an optimal swarm speed.

The applet seeds the torrents as long as you keep the browser window open. Daniele, the developer of both BitLet and the new WeStream feature told TorrentFreak: “It would have been easy to design the streaming client to be extremely selfish, and make it care only for its needs. Ideally, we tried to avoid it: Westream should behave as most torrent clients, with a slightly different piece choosing strategy.”

WeStream is a great tool for people who want to listen to some of the tracks before they download anything, or for people who want to let their friends listen to an album without having to send all the files over first. Above all, it is a great looking innovation from the BitLet team that shows how much is possible with BitTorrent. We might just see this implemented in some of the popular BitTorrent sites soon.

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

5 winners have been chosen. Check out the winning videos below.

Here’s a list of their names (in no particular order):

All winners will receive a Neuros OSD digital video recorder. Congratulations!

Send the videos to a friend and help spread the message. We don’t like DRM.

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

Although Grokster caved and accepted the judgment, paying a substantial amount to MGM, Streamcast hasn’t given up. The case is now being heard in US District Court in L.A. (Source: Hollywood Reporter.com)

The new “inducement test” is being hotly debated by entertainment and technology lawyers in and out of court. Even if StreamCast loses, attorney Charles Baker will seek to block damages by asserting the affirmative defense of copyright misuse. “The motion picture companies, record labels and publishers have for years colluded to limit the distribution of digital content”, pointing out the unfavorable licensing contracts that indie labels and others not associated with the majors are forced to accept.

Baker says, “The fight is far from over”, as the Supreme Court, in its ruling, invited anyone to take the case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Has anything changed in the real world of p2p? Yes, quite a lot.

The Hollywood Reporter, ESQ., invited RIAA general counsel Steven Marks, Universal Music Group eLabs president Larry Kenswil, and EFF’s Fred Von Lohmann to take part in a “spirited” roundtable discussion on the court ruling, filesharing, and digital distribution.

Kenswil believes that rather than shaking up the music industry, the Supreme Court’s ruling brought stability to the industry, setting rules about what people can do with copyrighted material. Von Lohmann disagrees. Except for the “inducement test”, the court failed to clarify the basic rules, pointing out that it’s still unclear whether a technology that has substantial non-infringing uses can be held responsible if people misuse the technology.

Both Marks and Kenswil believe that the inducement test has “nudged” technology companies to approach the labels and studios, looking for ways to work together, in effect taking the position that any technology not approved and sanctioned by the cartels is illegal. This, they claim, doesn’t stifle technological innovation, but encourages it (as long as the cartels can control it). Von Lohmann rightly puts them in their place and tells them they’re putting “the cart before the horse” when it comes to encouraging innovation.

The cartels claim the Betamax precedent doesn’t exist, as concerns the Supremes’ decision , or that if it does exist, it can be ignored because they want to work with “legitimate services”, which has already “enhanced” the market, citing the growth (haha!) of the legitimate digital market year to year.

Did we miss something here? As all parties acknowledge, free p2p has increased monthly since the original Napster case. They also acknowledge that the cartels will always have to compete with free p2p, although Universal’s Kenswil claims Napster had nothing to do with the “billions of dollars now being spent on digital music” and the technology behind it. He calls that idea “preposterous”. I guess he should know because it was the RIAA which shut Napster down, coerced it into joining the “legitimate” marketplace, which then turned Napster the useless piece of p2p crap it is today. He wouldn’t want to admit that billions were wasted in that arena.

On the other hand, while the rate of shared music files has slowed down – but still moving in an upward direction – in comparison to just a few years ago, film and TV filesharing has risen dramatically, constituting the bulk of files being shared around the world.

On the lawsuits in general, this roundtable had some obvious observations and a few surprises for the reader:

Marks: “I don’t think we’ve ever targeted technology or technology services.”

What’s that?

Didn’t the cartels sue Grokster, Streamcast, and Kazaa? Aren’t they trying to make a case against XM’s Inno? Didn’t they try to influence (read blackmail) the Swedish and U.S. governments into closing down Pirate Bay, ultimately failing – an endeavor which in turn gave birth to more filesharers and the creation of numerous political “Pirate Parties” in several countries, including Sweden and the U.S.?

Marks: “We’ve targeted companies who were, in our view, facilitating copyright infringement.”

Ah, so that’s how they blackmailed Bram Cohn. Okay, I get it now. As long as they can control the technology, everything’s kosher. If they can’t control it, in their view it’s illegal. Gotcha. First, threaten to sue the pants off the inventor of the most popular filesharing software. When he capitulates to your demands, pay him off with a house, a car, lifetime education for his kids, health insurance for the family, a seven-figure salary, and an exclusive contract (compulsory gag order/non-disclosure codicil included) .

Don’t forget to go after the users of the software, either.

Marks: “We very reluctantly began filing cases against individual users. But we think that both of those efforts have borne through. [The problem of piracy is now one] that is exemplified more by a hard-core group of users than it is by a continuing growth of users.”

LOL! That’s very funny because every statistical survey of file sharing has continually shown that more and more people are sharing files every day.

As Eric Garland, CEO of Big Champagne – the main analyst of p2p facts and figures – tells in a separate Hollywood Reporter interview, at any one time there are 10 million people sharing files on free p2p networks.

That’s roughly ten times as many as when Napster was in its heyday. And the numbers are going up, not down.

The lesson, according to the view of the cartels and their interpretation of the Grokster ruling is, if you have – or want to create – a filesharing program, go to the cartels first and ask for permission to innovate. Then you’ll get a sweet deal like Bram did. If you don’t you’ll be viewed as a thief and sued.

Marks: “Eradicating every last act of piracy is something we understand is futile, and has never been an objective of the industry.”

Really? So what’s with the 19,000 + lawsuits then? The ones you have no proof of copyright infringement? The ones, which will cost the industry billions of dollars and millions of customers? The ones you’ll ultimately lose because public awareness of and disgust for these frivolous cases and their waste of tax payer money will do more to turn people away from “legal” product than any p2p program ever could? What about these lawsuits? Are they just symbolic token lawsuits to grab headlines before they’re lost or thrown out of court? Hmmm?

I think it’s so cute they still consider free filesharing as “piracy” when nothing has been stolen, no money or services have been exchanged , ergo, no profit , no theft – and there’s no proof that a shared file equals a lost sale.

On the other hand, entertainment cartel practice of colluding to fix prices, bribe radio stations, arrest customers and plant spyware into computers everywhere is considered business as usual.

The cartels have never been able to prove that a file shared is equal to a lost sale or rental. In fact, several court cases have either been dropped by the cartels or thrown out exactly because they can’t prove it. And at the same time, the music and film industries are reporting record profits.

Big Champagne, the most-noteworthy and respected compiler of free p2p statistics, the place where even the MPAA and RIAA go to for reliable information, has continually shown that free p2p has increased, despite the thousands of unlawful lawsuits filed against innocent people. But no-one can show that money is lost due to free p2p.

The entertainment industry is stuck in, and unwilling to leave, the past. The future is here. The future is now. The future is free p2p.

Free p2p doesn’t have to be seen as something negative or evil. It can also be a useful tool for the cartels.

For decades the Nielsen TV ratings system has decided the rates advertisers must pay.

The Nielsen ratings system is based only on overnight results in certain markets, whereas free p2p is immediate and virtually open-ended time-wise, and isn’t tied to age or gender demographics. Instead of calculating viewers per capita or by region, they can see exactly how many times a file was downloaded and use this info to help in setting advertising rates. There’s no reason why the Nielsen system can’t work with the Big Champagne system. There will always be people who either first watch a program on TV with ads and then download it, or vice verse. The two sets of statistics, taking this knowledge into account, can be used to create a better and more accurate picture.

True, when files are shared ads are edited out. But looking at the total worldwide viewership, instead of just measly overnight ratings, including the statistics from p2p networks will give a much better idea of how many people are interested in a program, which can be used to calculate ad rates.

Too many times a good program is cancelled because of either low ratings (Star Trek: Enterprise) or because of pressure from political or religious groups (The Book of Daniel). Both of these shows were extremely popular on p2p networks, but were canceled due to outdated ratings systems and the extreme-right activist groups. Ad revenue was lost, but not because of free p2p.

Even though more people might be downloading a program, that doesn’t mean they won’t watch it on TV as well, just as downloading a film doesn’t mean a DVD or cinema ticket won’t be purchased. But a new way of calculating ad revenue can be created using all the tools available.

I don’t know how this can be done, but I believe it can be done to satisfy networks and advertisers, without losing viewers. Keeping these shows on the air will increase the numbers of broadcast viewers, whether they have access to a computer or not. And p2p will be the cause of this increase.

Has anything changed in p2p since MGM v. Grokster? Yes, most definitely.

There are more and more files and file sharers and file sharing networks than ever before. This, despite , or as a result of , the backward-thinking cartels and their ridiculous claims of losing money, as well as the thousands of lawsuits being illegally and immorally brought against innocent people.

And as mentioned cinema tickets, and CD and DVD sales and rentals have increased.

Will the cartels change with the times? Probably not. As long as they can continue influencing political parties and the lamescream media; as long as they can control the distribution of “product” and the technology behind the distribution; and as long as there are lawyers willing to make a buck off the backs of innocent people, the entertainment industry will lag behind real innovation.

But free p2p is here to stay.

p2pnet

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

Empornium

Targetpoint has nothing to do with Empornium.us’s recent changes. The fact is that a former Targetpoint employee Oded Daniel was involved in the transfer and sale of empornium.us to its new owner. Daniel operates as a broker and he is listed as the registrant of the site, but the site is owned by a group of people, not related to Daniel. It might look suspicious that Oded Daniel is the domain registrant, but as a domain and site broker he is the registrant of more sites which he does not own.

At least, this is what we learned from my recent conversation with Mr. Daniel. He told that the present owner prefers to stay out of the picture. He also stressed that empornium still is a free site, but that new members can buy their way into the community when registration is closed.

So basically it is a paysite when registration is closed, but people can join for free when it’s open.

So Daniels statement on Slyck

Registration will continue to be free for all users, new and old

is not completely true… (Update: Slyck fixed it)

Wait a minute… How can he make these statements anyway if he is not involved with targetpoint or empornium? Ah… he is in charge of the monetizing of empornium.

Targetpoint Buying BitTorrent Sites

In our initial article three months ago we reported that Targetpoint tried to buy several BitTorrent sites. The fact is that three unrelated torrentsite owners told TorrentFreak that Targetpoint opted to buy their site. Among these sites is one of the biggest players in the BitTorrent scene and Meganova. Meganova who posted Targetpoints attempts to buy their site openly on their blog.

According to Meganova owner Bogaa he spoke to Ran Yehud from Targetpoint. Bogaa quotes the email correspondance at Slyck forums my emails

Quote:

Hi Bogaa,
It’s Ran from Targetpoint.
I wanted to speak with you about something please contact me or leave me a phone where I can reach you.
Thanks,
Ran

Bogaa continues: “Later on when we made the news public, we received this email:”

Quote:

Hi Bogaa,
I got this earlier this week: http://TorrentFreak.com/targetpoint-is-buying-BitTorrent-sites/
I see you are doing nice PR for you site, as long as you didn’t made us look bad that is fine with me!
Anyhow, happy holidays.
Bye and best regards,
Ran

When we contacted Targetpoint about these actions they stated:

Targetpoint is an advertising network. We do not own any commercial/content sites. For that matter, we do not own any of the following sites:Empornium.us, puretna.com, imagefap.com, Thepiratebay.org and mininova.org.

However, Oded Daniel, a former Targetpoint employee and related to all the sites Targetpoint mentions told TorrentFreak:

Targetpoint’s CEO indeed confirmed to me that they tried to buy Meganova. This is not unique, these deals happen all the time. Direct deals, external deals, partner agreements and exclusive ownerships are a part of out bussiness.

So we’ve got a little contradiction here.

The Piratebay and Mininova

This is probably one of the more sensitive points, implying that “pirates cuddle toy” the Piratebay is partly owned by a third party is pretty controversial.

Let me start with saying that Targetpoint does NOT own any part of mininova.org. The only relation Mininova has with Targetpoint is strictly business; they deliver the ads, that’s all.

The Piratebay case is more complicated; two credible sources reported to TorrentFreak that former Targetpoint employee Oded Daniel has a share (37%) in The Piratebay. One of these sources got this information directly from one of The Piratebay owners.

This means that it is not Targetpoint that owns a piece of TPB, but Oded Daniel. The same person who happens to be the CEO of Random Media. A recent article on rixstep.com argued that it is Oded Daniel’s company who handles TPB’s ad revenues.

When SvD rang Oded Daniel he refused to reveal what Random Media are and why the company have an address in Switzerland but a telephone number in Stockholm. And he refused to reveal where the ad revenues for The Pirate Bay disappear to.

‘Who said I take care of the money? There are a lot of bit torrent sites. They all work the same way. Go after them instead’, said Oded.

An interesting detail is that randommedia’s website is hosted at PRQ, TPB’s hosting provider…

In our recent conversation with Oded Daniel he said that his company is delivering the ads (url: clicktorrent.info) on TBP but that there are no shares. This is actually a good point because TBP doesn’t have any shares, the only thing they can share are server costs and ad revenues. Perhaps the 37% is the shared ad revenue figure?

It is funny to see that Mr. Daniel and TPB respond exactly the same to the question about the relationship between Targetpoint and TBP:

TPB/Targetpoint used to work with Targetpoint/TPB before, currently we do not. We might in the future again

…

So lets wrap it up.

1. Targetpoint does not own Emponium, some guy who doesn’t wants to reveal his identity does. Mr Daniel, a former employee of Targetpoint is monetizing empornium.

2. Several sources confirm that Targetpoint is buying BitTorrent sites. Targetpoint denies these allegations.

3. Targetpoint has no shares in TPB. TPB probably has a shared ad revenue agreement with mr. Oded, but that’s pretty common. Mr. Daniel had strong links with The Piratebay and other torrentsites, the website of his company randommedia is hosted at TPB’s hosting provider.

This is what I found out, there are a lot more (minor) details, and there’s always room for conspiricy theories and other wild fantasies, but that’s why we have comments.

To quote a former admin at Empornium (slyck forums):

Like Broham said, I never claimed Oded owned anything. I personally had discussions with Oded a couple times while I was an Emp admin, and he represented himself to me as an employee of Targetpoint. Targetpoint was always represented as the investor, not Oded.

He also made it perfectly clear on more than one occasion that he did not want Targetpoint’s involvement with the site publicly disclosed, even going so far as to have Noos log into our boxes and delete forum threads and threaten anyone, including admins, with box-banning if they said anything negative about Targetpoint. The latter occasion is when the “Targetpoint is full of shit” avatars disappeared.

So it comes as no surprise to me that he is desperately trying to deny Targetpoint’s involvement. They know that corporate involvement in peer-to-peer, in porn, and a corporation asking for “donations” stinks.”

…

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

The limewire blog interviewed Zlatin who’s handling the BitTorrent integration

What prompted the decision to integrate BT into the next version of the LW client?

We had been interested in supporting BT for a very long time but it wasn’t until the recent redesign of the LimeWire core that we were able to do so. We believe that supporting BT will benefit our users as well as the general BT community. It also enables us to do other novel features in the future.

What will this look like to the average LimeWire user, i.e. how will their basic experience on the client change?

It will remain almost the same. Major part of the effort was making sure that torrents blend seamlessly in the experience users have grown to expect from LimeWire. If you compare any Gnutella client with any BT client you’ll see their usage patterns differ in the same way; LimeWire however will look and feel the way it did before, and torrents will look like any other download. All they need to do is double-click on a .torrent file and the download will begin. No wizards, no queues to worry about, no advanced options to tweak, no overwhelming stats – it just works.

LimeWire has proudly flown the Gnutella banner for a while now, and to adopt BT is to adopt a network structure it has avoided in the past. Was there any resistance to this shift or do you see it as necessary evolution?

BT is not a rival network structure; it’s orthogonal to gnutella so there is no conflict on the network level. The main conflicts were the user experience (mentioned above) and the increased competition for upload bandwidth. Since the latter affects other BT clients, I’m sure it will be a point that will come up again and again in the future.

Writing a solid BT program is surely as difficult as writing an equivalent Gnutella-based program, how significant a push to both create and eventually maintain this new aspect is occurring? Are there any existing BT programs that you are using as models?

We’re using the existing BT clients as a model what not to do as far as the user interface is concerned! Network-wise there are some clever ideas we’ve snatched from Azureus and the mainline client.
At first we’ll release a “vanilla” implementation of the basic BT protocol and over time we’ll be adding the various extensions that were developed over the years. We can’t be more specific at this time because some of them are rather intrusive and/or controversial (like encryption). Furthermore, Bram’s vision of BT’s future appears to be different from that of other developers, and for the moment we’d like to stay out of any potential conflict.

What are the advantages of mixing the torrents and Gnutella downloads as opposed to keeping them separate?

The advantage to the user is obvious – they don’t need to run a separate program to download the torrent and can manage their downloads in a consistent and unified manner from a single place. Keeping them separate enables advanced management and the fine-tuning of various aspects of the torrent download. Power users will probably prefer that.

What does this mean for BT sites?

This is very difficult to speculate on because there are a lot of factors and dynamic involved, and torrent sites are a very diverse bunch. I imagine the most authoritarian ones will not be very happy because LimeWire may take away some of the centralized control they enjoy now. But then again how many of the users of such sites will choose to switch to LimeWire or how many new BT users (those LW has brought in the picture) will go to such sites is unknown. This will be another hot topic in the future, I’m sure.

A question from Daniel from thewebdesignjournal.com: “Great that LimeWire will support BitTorrent file transfers. BUT will LimeWire include a new way to actually find the .torrent files?”

We have a lot of exciting features in the pipeline so stay tuned…

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

Unfortunately not everybody knows every movie listed, so you probably want to check some extra info on IMDB. To make your life a little easier, skender wrote a script to list all the movies on publicdomaintorrents by their IMDB rating.

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