The case progressed in the Federal Court today, with iiNet barrister Richard Cobden continuing with his closing submissions.

As detailed earlier in the case, after AFACT sent many thousands of copyright infringement notices to iiNet, the ISP responded by sending them to the police. Cobden defended that decision today, claiming that the notices could constitute evidence of copyright crimes.

While the studios had earlier insisted that they would never sanction unlawful investigation methods, ITNews quotes Cobden as saying that in gathering that evidence, it was likely the investigators themselves had also committed offenses, breaching section 132AJ(1) of the Copyright Act.

The barrister said that both investigators committed primary acts of infringement online, and while AFACT had earlier claimed that iiNet users burned copyright material onto DVDs after downloading it, in fact the only evidence of that being done relates to the copies made by AFACT investigators.

Continuing to attack the evidence provided by AFACT and its anti-piracy partner DtecNet, Cobden returned to an earlier assertion that DtecNet investigators did not behave as normal BitTorrent users would. Regular users would allow their torrent client to connect to any peers, but DtecNet filtered out any that weren’t issued with iiNet IP addresses.

ARN quotes Cobden as saying this action was “foolish” as it slowed download times to several days. As we heard earlier in the case, this led to investigators counting the same infringement more than once.

Last week, Cobden argued that AFACT hadn’t provided any evidence that iiNet customers had engaged in copyright infringement as they were only sharing small parts of files (such is the nature of BitTorrent), rather than the “substantial” parts, as required under the law. In order to prove his point, Cobden went on to cite an earlier copyright case.

In 2002, Australian TV station Channel 9 sued Channel 10 citing infringement under the Copyright Act 1968. Channel 10 had broadcast short sections of Channel 9 programs The Today Show, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Days of Our Lives and Sale of the New Century in their television show called The Panel. The view was that of the 11 segments played, only 3 were long enough to constitute infringement.

As anti-piracy tracking companies such as DtecNet only record an instance of alleged copyright infringement timed to a single second, Cobden is arguing that there is no evidence to prove any “substantial” part of any movie was shared by iiNet users.

Cobden went on to insist that in order to confirm that evidence of infringement provided by AFACT was indeed accurate (before passing notices to their customers), it would be necessary for the ISP to breach copyright.

“If one wanted to check the DtecNet evidence and see on a range of IP addresses supplied by iiNet that infringing material was online, the only way to do it would be to use the BitTorrent client like DtecNet did, construct the parameters of the IP address range, locate the file and compare it to details in the spreadsheets,” said Cobden, as quoted by ITNews.

Cobden said that if iiNet passed unproven infringement notices to its customers, it would face problems if the account holder disputed the claims. After all, iiNet had only AFACT’s word that an infringement had been carried out, but absolutely no proof or other information to have a meaningful discussion on the issue.

It is likely that Cobden will finish his closing submissions next Tuesday 24th. The Internet Industry Association’s application to become a ‘friend of the court’ will be heard on the afternoon of that day, bringing the original date forward by two days.

The case will then end either next Wednesday or Thursday, but readers are advised not to hold their breath for the verdict – it could take several months to arrive.

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

Those who take a few minutes to browse through the site will discover all kinds of other neat features. One of the latest additions to the site is the option to download files directly, through partner site httpTorrents.

The integration with httpTorrents gives users the option to download the files directly without having to use a BitTorrent client. Music tracks can also be streamed directly from the site itself. The service works in a similar way to most other files hosting services such as Rapidshare, but only works with torrents and doesn’t allow users to upload files themselves.

The owner of the site told TorrentFreak that direct http downloads may be useful to users who have restricted access to BitTorrent, such as those whose ISP or firewall blocks or slows down transfers. There are currently 4000 files available as a direct download, but this number is growing rapidly.

KickassTorrents’ users can submit a request for files that are not yet available as direct downloads. “If someone clicks on the http download button at KickassTorrents and the file is not available yet, it places it in the request queue at httpTorrents. Only popular torrents are downloaded during the beta stage,” TorrentFreak was told by the site’s owner.

“KickassTorrents and httpTorrents are not directly connected. However we use their API to get hashes of the torrents available for the direct download,” the owner said, adding that if the beta tests are successful this API will also be available to other torrent sites.

Everyone can use httpTorrents, but in the future the download speed and number of simultaneous downloads will be limited for free users. Those who want to use it more than occasionally will have the option to sign up for a premium account without restrictions.

Since the service is actually hosting files (on an external CDN) it might run into complaints from copyright holders. The owner of the site told TorrentFreak that he’s not too worried about the legal implications, and hopes that a takedown policy will prevent the site from running into trouble.

It will be interesting to see how the service develops in the future, and we will definitely be keeping a close eye on it. Although direct downloads may be preferred in some cases, for those looking for (free) high speed downloads, BitTorrent probably remains the best solution.

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

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

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

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

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

Recently the Cyber Norms sociological research project reported that 10% of Swedes aged between 15 and 25 were taking measures to neutralize online surveillance, with as many as 500,000 of their countrymen following suit. Måns Svensson, PhD in Sociology of Law in Lund, estimated that 6 to 7 percent of all Swedes could now be hiding themselves online.

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

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

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

It therefore came as a big surprise to hear that Ethan Applen, director of technology and business strategy at Warner Bros., stated at NewTeeVee’s Video Rights Roundtable that P2P technology doesn’t deserve to be blamed for the fact that some people use it to download copyright infringing content.

“In terms of our own view, we think P2P gets vilified. It’s just a technology. CNN used it for Inauguration coverage. It can be used for piracy, but as a technology, I think it has a lot of advantages to it,” Applen said, adding that “P2P works really well at delivering an entire season or the entire run of a show.”

Applen’s comments are at odds with the legal strategies of the Hollywood studio, where its lawyers continue to blame the providers of technology for the activities of their users. If Warner Bros. indeed believes that P2P technology is not the villain, then they should inform their lawyers or withdraw from the court cases they are currently involved in.

Applen appeared together with Bram Cohen in the roundtable session, where worryingly some of the attendees admitted hating the BitTorrent inventor for creating his famous file transfer protocol. Aside from praising P2P for its speedy delivery of TV-shows, Applen also mentioned that it is a good marketing tool.

This is no surprise as a Warner Bros. executive previously admitted to leaking a pilot of Pushing Daisies on BitTorrent in order to “help the cause”.

Bram Cohen himself also gave several example of how ‘unauthorized sharing’ via BitTorrent may have helped content creators. He mentioned that the leak of an unfinished copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine might have boosted interest in the film, and he noted that BitTorrent may have also helped the anime business to grow.

Despite all the positive comments on the use of BitTorrent and P2P in general by this Warner Bros. executive, we can’t help wondering why they are still pouring millions into ridiculous anti-P2P lawsuits that haven’t decreased piracy a single bit.

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.

The case continued Thursday in the Federal Court, with iiNet CEO Michael Malone taking the stand for the fourth consecutive day, and possibly his last.

Not unusually for a copyright trial involving BitTorrent, the issue of The Pirate Bay was raised.

Yesterday AFACT barrister Tony Bannon incorrectly suggested that iiNet’s very own BitTorrent tracker’s functionality had been taken down, later to discover that in fact the court’s network blocked BitTorrent transfers.

Bannon indicated that he would like to be able to give a courtroom demonstration of The Pirate Bay Thursday, and the judge agreed that it would be possible to lift the block so he could do so.

According to ITNews, Bannon was today true to his word.

After the demo, Bannon enquired of Malone whether iiNet had a desire for its subscribers to be able to access the world’s largest tracker, “…when the only purpose it serves is providing a way to download unauthorized copies of films?”

This question was met with objection from iiNet barrister Richard Cobden, who argued that customer “desire” was irrelevant to the case. The judge, Justice Cowdroy, was also keen to discover the relevance.

Bannon then became the latest in a long line of movie and music industry lawyers to reveal that should his clients win the case, they will take legal action to have not only the world’s largest tracker blocked from iiNet’s customers, but other similar sites.

He also revealed that around 50% of the alleged copyright infringements in the case came courtesy of The Pirate Bay.

Then Bannon attempted to show that by allowing its customers to access The Pirate Bay, iiNet effectively sanctioned and authorized their infringing activities.

“We seek Mr Malone’s position as to whether or not his customers should have access to sites such as this,” said Bannon.

However, after legal argument, Bannon withdrew the question.

Malone did, however, concede that iiNet had taken no steps to block The Pirate Bay, but qualified this by indicating that the company didn’t possess the means to do so. Bannon asked if it was technically possible and Malone replied that he could achieve a primitive block with additional equipment, but even that could be easily circumvented

“To completely and conclusively block access to The Pirate Bay, I believe it to be beyond our technical capability or of any ISP,” replied Malone.

Asked by Cobden if iiNet had ever blocked any web sites, Malone said the company had not.

This technical inability led to iiNet pulling out of the Australian government’s filtering trials, reports ComputerWorld. Malone has been an outspoken critic of the filtering scheme, labeling it “fundamentally flawed” and saying his company would only participate in the trials to prove that filtering would fail.

The case continues.

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

The case continued Wednesday in the Federal Court, with iiNet CEO Michael Malone taking the stand for the third consecutive day.

Again AFACT barrister Tony Bannon tried to portray iiNet as an encourager of copyright infringement on its network, by referring to iiNet marketing where the ISP measures bandwidth in terms of how much music or TV episodes people can download. Malone said the company did this simply to give a customer an easier barometer by which to measure their consumption.

When questioned on the music aspect, Malone said the company referred to legal downloads, such as those from iTunes. Bannon countered by saying this could not be the case, since iiNet did not count downloads from iTunes towards a customer’s bandwidth quota.

According to iTWire, a welcome email from iiNet to new customers ended with, “Thanks for choosing iiNet. Happy downloading.”

By drawing attention to the above ponts, AFACT hopes to show that iiNet encouraged infringements, thereby losing its safe habor protection as a carrier.

CW reports that AFACT presented press articles regarding the levels of BitTorrent transfers on the Internet, in the context of actions taken by ISPs in order to limit P2P traffic.

In one article, Malone had said that BitTorrent transfers accounted for around 50% of all Internet traffic and admitted in court that BitTorrent had been used on iiNet’s network since it became available. He went on to agree that while much of this traffic involved the transfer of movies and TV shows, he didn’t feel that “..every young person in Australia is downloading illegally using BitTorrent.”

One exchange apparently raised a laugh in the courtroom when Bannon accused Malone of attracting heavy-usage customers in order to boost iiNet profits.

“I would prefer [those customers] go to someone else and let someone else be sued,” said Malone.

“And you’re happy to take their money in the meantime?” Bannon asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

Yet again, Bannon raised the issue of iiNet’s failure to forward AFACT copyright infringement allegations to its customers. However, an email presented from the Internet Industry Association’s Peter Coroneos, indicated that he was concerned that doing so could lead to an assumption that ISPs are responsible for the actions of their customers.

In the email exchange with Malone, Coroneos said it would be preferable and advantageous for all involved if the content owners could provide some legal alternatives.

After Bannon showed the court documentation showing policies in place at rival ISPs to deal with allegations of copyright infringement, Malone again confirmed that iiNet has no formal policy on how to deal with these type of allegations, noting that the company had yet to be presented with evidence of what he described as a “repeat infringer”.

Earlier in the case, Malone had defined a repeat infringer as one who had been proven as such by a court, but Bannon mocked Malone, asking if the iiNet CEO had just heard what he’d said and would he like to think about the question again for a moment.

Malone said he didn’t and Bannon accused him of treating the proceedings as a game.

The case continues tomorrow.

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

Continuing first from yesterday’s proceedings, ITnews reported an exchange between iiNet CEO Michael Malone and movie industry barrister Tony Bannon, over Malone’s understanding of BitTorrent.

Malone told the court that while he had an understanding of the protocol, he had never used uTorrent, the client used earlier by Bannon to give the court a technical demonstration. Bannon’s demo used iiNet’s own tracker (an installation of RivetTracker) which it has used to distributed several press releases which all relate to the trial.

It is difficult to see where Bannon was going with his questioning, but it began with an admittance by Malone that the torrent files were intended to be used by people with access to a BitTorrent client. Malone then denied that the releases were specifically targeted at iiNet customers, noting that anyone can access them

Under further questioning regarding the inclusion of a note in the torrent files dialogue box indicating the files were non-pirated, Malone reiterated that while he had an understanding of the BitTorrent protocol, he did not have experience of the client used by Bannon

Then, with an apparent deafness towards Malone’s perfectly clear response, and demonstrating an apparent ignorance between a BitTorrent client and the BitTorrent protocol, Bannon sought to press Malone into admitting to his 400,000 customers that he didn’t understand BitTorrent.

Again, Malone stated that he didn’t know how to put a comment on a torrent file, but Bannon persisted in trying to get Malone to admit that he knows how uTorrent 1.8.4 works, but Malone said he’d never used it. There could, however, be people in iiNet who had, he conceded.

Bannon then said that in the last 24 hours the torrent file functionality for the press releases had been removed. Malone said that if it had, he certainly hadn’t requested it, asking Bannon how he was attempting to access the Internet, suggesting that a firewall in the court was stopping the transfer.

TorrentFreak’s checks show a single seeder on each torrent and each one worked absolutely perfectly.

Moving on to iiNet’s handling of copyright infringement allegations, iTWire reports that Bannon tried to paint a picture that iiNet’s policy of forwarding AFACT notices to the police was little more than a cynical attempt to pretend that they were dealing with them, when in fact they were not.

For the umpteenth time in this case, Malone said that he was under no obligation to act on mere allegations from AFACT which were not backed up by a court order.

“AFACT was telling us to disconnect customers without further ado,” said Malone. “The question is, what should we do when confronted with illegal activity? And our response is, report it to the proper authorities.”

While iiNet said it had always been policy to forward the notices to the police, ITWire notes that evidence emerged that the company had sent notifications twice, although there was no indication of how many infringement notices were in each batch.

Yesterday Malone said that the evidence provided by tracking company DtecNet’s investigation was “compelling” and should be reviewed by a third party and the courts. In the face of this statement, Bannon asked Malone why he had not taken action based on AFACT’s allegations.

“This is a right,” said Malone, “not an obligation of iiNet.”

These days arguments in favor of anti-piracy action seem almost incomplete with the obligatory reference to child pornography, as we heard in yesterday’s propaganda piece from CBS. This case is no different.

Bannon put it to Malone that if the evidence provided was “compelling” and Malone had received “compelling evidence” that an iiNet customer was accessing child porn, would the company allow the user to do so “day after day?”

Of course, any allegations of this nature would involve the police, and the police or the courts would do the investigation, get the proper paperwork and order iiNet to comply, which they naturally would. Malone said that on mere AFACT allegations of civil infringement (as apposed to an infinitely more serious and jailable criminal offense), such action would not be permitted.

Bannone then pressured Malone to admit that “…you’re happy to tell your customers this from the witness box,” that iiNet will not disconnect subscribers for infringing copyright.

At this point one has to wonder if Bannon is deaf or just plain stubborn. It is absolutely crystal clear to anyone following these proceedings that yes, iiNet will disconnect customers for copyright infringement, providing there has been due process and a court has ruled that disconnection is appropriate.

The case continues tomorrow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Titled “Escape From Terror Byte City” the book tells the story of two young boys who attempt to download the latest Transformers movie from a P2P website. Of course, when the two fire-up their file-sharing software all hell breaks loose.

Surprisingly, the story itself has nothing to do with the consequences of copyright infringement. The comic book that is supposed to educate children about file-sharing is nothing more than a scary story about viruses, worms, trojan horses and identity theft.

It’s quite sad really when you think about it. Apparently the MPA and their anti-piracy partners have decided to give up on the message that piracy hurts their business in the hopes that horror stories about infected computers will deter youngsters from downloading copyrighted works instead.

That aside, the risks of being exposed to viruses and malware on P2P networks have always been greatly exaggerated. If we follow the logic of the MPA we might as well ban email because of all the trojans and phishing scams that are sent around. Or stop selling USB drives because people might lose them and potentially expose personal information that shouldn’t be on there in the first place.

The comic is conveniently avoiding the word copyright, perhaps because the 10 year crusade against copyright infringement hasn’t led to any results. The propaganda doesn’t work without providing alternatives, and every parent knows that forbidding something quite often leads to the opposite result.

Still, the entertainment industry seems unconcerned with innovation and new ways to adapt to the digital era. Instead they prefer to focus on promoting new ways to punish potential consumers. Aside from pushing the comic book, the Hollywood lobbyist also lobbied for the return of the controversial ‘3-strikes’ legislation which was scrapped earlier this year after public pressure.

Will they ever learn? A scanned copy of the full comic book is available on Mininova. This one’s going to be a collectors item, for sure.

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.

Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol is one of the rare exceptions to this rule. The book appeared on several file-sharing sites just hours after its official release and has been downloaded by more than one hundred thousand pirates scattered across the globe.

For some people the ‘pirate’ route is the only way to get their hands on the much anticipated book, simply because it is not yet available in their country.

“Thanks a lot for sharing the book so early with us. I was eagerly waiting for this because it is still to be released in India. Now I can read it before anyone else,” a downloader of the high quality PDF version of the book commented.

Since it was uploaded two days ago the eBook has been downloaded by approximately 40,000 BitTorrent users. The unabridged audiobook copy is even more popular with close to 60,000 downloads since its release.

This most downloaded audiobook torrent currently has well over a thousand seeders, which is quote unusual as one commenter noted. “It’s really amazing to see thousands of people downloading and seeding an audiobook torrent because usually I see only a few hundred people downloading an audiobook torrent.”

Alison Barrow, associate publicity director for Transworld, the book’s publisher in the UK said that they are asking sites to take down links to pirated copies. “We are not being complacent about this,” she noted.

Whether or not the availability of unauthorized copies will have a negative effect on the book’s sales remains to be seen. Bestselling author Paulo Coelho has shown that giving away free digital copies of book can actually boost sales to quite an extent.

Coelho, who is an avid BitTorrent user himself and a passionate supporter of The Pirate Bay has encouraged many of his fellow authors to share their work. “A person who does not share is not only selfish, but bitter and alone,” Coelho told TorrentFreak. Perhaps Dan Brown took Coelho’s advice?

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

Big Media attacks on those who provide these subtitles have been documented regularly here on TorrentFreak. From WikiSubtitles in Spain, to a broad assault on many outlets in Greece, threats of legal action are commonplace.

Of course, those who rely on translated and home-made subtitles can be very passionate about the enjoyment they can bring, so when anti-piracy groups moved against Legendas subbing group earlier this year, hackers were motivated enough to take their revenge.

While Legendas argued that fansubbers aren’t thieves but avid customers, anti-piracy outfits clearly don’t agree.

One such group is ALIS, Israel’s arm of the MPAA. In late 2007 it assisted in raids on the admins of three sites known as ‘xvoom’, ‘MYakuza’ and ‘Donkey‘ which carried Hebrew subtitles for US movies. In the end ALIS reached private compensation and closure agreements with the owners of two of the sites and took legal action against a third.

Now in 2009 ALIS is again active against creators of subtitles. Targeting Qsubs, one of Israel’s best translation groups, ALIS is threatening legal action against three of its members after sending them cease and desist letters last week.

ALIS is demanding that Qsubs, which has dozens of translators, stops their activities and is ordering the three translators to pay damages of around $264,000 each. They also want the individuals to issue a public apology for creating subtitles. ALIS believes that the three individuals it has identified are administrators of Qsubs.

In addition to copyright claims over subtitles, ALIS lawyer Eran Presenti says that there are further infringements on Qsubs such as movie and TV artwork along with various screenshots.

While the legal ramifications are digested by the Qsubs team, its subtitling activities have been suspended.

According to intellectual property lawyer Ran Camille, movie and TV show scripts are considered “dramatic creations” and therefore subject to copyright law. Article 16 of the Copyrights Act states that only the primary copyright holder has the right to distribute any part of a finished product, subtitles included. However, it is unclear how this legal position is affected by subtitles translated from another language.

“We have been doing this for years and never got a dime for our services, everything was done for free,” Qsubs spokesman Amit told TorrentFreak. “We have a lawyer already which is costing us a lot of money that comes out of our own accounts,” he added.

Although Qsubs can finance their lawyer right now, they need further funds in order to mount their defense or sadly they could be forced to close down and pay huge damages. Anyone wishing to contribute can do so by pressing the PayPal donation button on the Qsubs site.

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

The ambitions of the Pirates don’t stop there though, as they are currently preparing for a successful run in the upcoming elections. With Herbert Rusche, the Pirates add another experienced politician to their team.

Nicole Hornung of the Pirate Party says he is pleased with gaining such a prominent new pirate: “Herbert’s long political experience is invaluable for us. In addition, he has already helped to develop a group of dedicated young people in the direction of governing a party.”

Indeed, Rusche has plenty of experience. He is one of the co-founders of Germany’s Green party for which he served as a Member of Parliament for several years.

This fall, the Pirate Party hopes to do well in the German federal election so they can do something about the increased censorship of the Internet and abuses of copyright. The party is further committed to increase transparency and strengthen the fundamental rights and protection of privacy.

According to Rusche the Pirate Party can do a lot of good work for the German people by addressing these issues. “The established parties fail completely, for many people these issues are of paramount importance,” Rusche concludes.

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

Today, GGF shared its plans with the shareholders, who all decided in favor of the deal.

After several investors decided to pull out, GGF’s shareholders – including the CEO who holds more than half of the shares – will finance the acquisition themselves.

After the domain has been transferred to GGF, the new Pirate Bay will be transformed into a pay site charging users for access. To please the entertainment industries, GGF will install a system that will allow the copyright holders to either authorize the ‘illegal’ torrents or have them removed from the site.

How pleased the copyright holders will be with this new legalization plan is seriously up for debate – Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has already stated that it is insufficient.

There are currently no licensing agreements in place with the entertainment industry, but despite the criticism GGF hopes to partner with most of the major movie studios and record labels within a year.

In addition to the Pirate Bay acquisition, GGF also confirmed that it will buy the file-sharing technology company Peerialism for 100 million Swedish kroner. Peerialism will provide core technology for the new Pirate Bay.

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

However, history has shown that BitTorrent users are an adaptive species that simply migrates to the next site when their home bases become uninhabitable.

While private trackers certainly have their place and will accommodate those lucky enough to get an invite, for this article we are interested in sites that are open to everyone, ranging from full Pirate Bay replacements to a do-it-yourself setup. If you’re looking for high speed downloads you could also consider to try Usenet instead (our Usenet guide).

Full Pirate Bay Alternatives

The only full Pirate Bay alternatives are sites that index torrent files, are open to everyone and also have a working tracker. Unfortunately, there are only a few sites out there that offer this full package -there are four of them below. We decided to include Demonoid here because it tracks many public torrents.

1. Torrentbox

2. 1337x

3. H33t

4. Demonoid (semi-private)

Torrent Indexers

Torrent indexers are sites that have a searchable directory of torrent files, but don’t host a (public) tracker of their own. Mininova has a tracker, but they only allow ‘featured’ torrents uploaded through their content distribution service. The most used torrent indexers are:

5. Mininova

6. isoHunt

7. Torrentreactor

8. BTjunkie

Torrent Meta-Seach Engines

BitTorrent meta-search engines are yet another brand of torrent sites. They don’t have a tracker and don’t host any torrent files on their servers. Instead they search for and link to torrents hosted on third party sites.

9. Torrentz

10. Nowtorrents

11. Qtorrents

12. Torrent-Finder

Private Trackers (open signup)

Most of the larger private trackers require an invite to join, but there are always a few that allow new members. Below are four of these (open) private trackers and more can be found on Btracs.

13. RTN

14. BiteMyTorrent

15. BitShock

16. TorrentIt

Standalone BitTorrent Trackers

Torrent indexers and meta-search engines can be used to find torrents, but none of them will be of much use without a stable BitTorrent tracker. Standalone BitTorrent trackers are much needed, they handle the communication between downloaders but don’t index any torrents themselves.

17. OpenBitTorrent

18. PublicBitTorrent

19. The Hidden Tracker

20. Denis.Stalker

DIY Pirate Bay Alternatives

The last category of Pirate Bay alternatives are the do-it-yourself projects. By using the three ingredients below The Pirate Bay can be easily rebuilt. It might take a few hours, but then the path to world domination is clear.

21. Pirate Bay Torrents Clone

22. Pirate Bay HTML Clone

23. Torrage: Torrent API

24. Tracker Software

Last but not Least

Google, the mother of all search engines has a filetype:torrent search command that allows you to find torrent files scattered across the Internet. Also, Google’s custom search allows everyone to create their own torrent search engine. Don’t tell the MPAA and RIAA.

25. Google

If you think we missed any good alternatives, please feel free to add your own in the comment section below, while clearly noting which category they fit into.

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.

Unfortunately, users of Torrent.kg found their favorite site inaccessible at the end of last week when a message in Russian appeared on its homepage. “For reasons beyond our control the site is temporarily suspended. The administration hopes for a speedy solution to all problems. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.”

Of course, P2P users in the west would probably be suspicious that an unexplained torrent site shutdown could be linked to copyright issues, but for those from Kyrgyzstan this would be a fairly unusual event. However, those suspicions would prove correct – Torrent.kg had been shut down by the police.

A staff member at the site confirmed that the police had indeed closed down the site by confiscating the servers. The police said that on Monday they were due to conduct an examination of the seized hardware but as of yet the site remains down, even though a temporary forum is now available for concerned users.

The site’s owner seems confident that the site will return fairly soon and is asking the userbase not to remove any torrents they have in their clients so as not to damage the health of the tracker.

TorrentFreak caught up with Tolkun Umaraliev, a blogger from Kyrgyzstan who expressed doubt that the closure of Torrent.kg would make any meaningful impact on availability of pirate material in the country.

“Piracy cannot be stopped in Kyrgyzstan, because people – consumers – do not really know what piracy is, and that it is illegal. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, our market has been filled with underground VHS cassettes of Hollywood movies poorly translated into Russian and underground audio cassettes of western singers. And their prices were reasonable – consumers could afford them,” he told us.

Interestingly, Tolkun explained that Kyrgyzstan was introduced to pirated products long before legal options were available.

“It was several years after the fall of the Iron Curtain that licensed products came to our markets. But they were so expensive that people continued buying illegal copies. And until recently the state has not been taking any firm steps in fighting piracy in Kyrgyzstan.”

But just as in the west, the authorities shut one site down and other, more resilient ones appear. Kyrgyzstan now has its own version of OpenBitTorrent.

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

TorrentFreak spoke with GGF’s CEO Hans Pandeya in an attempt to get more details about what the future holds for the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker. Although most questions will remain unanswered until after the deal is completed, we did find out that the company plans to have The Pirate Bay listed on the American stock exchange.

“We are looking into the possibility to get the operation listed on the NASDAQ Small Cap Index,” Pandeya told TorrentFreak, adding that the first priority is to get the major music labels and movie studios on board. “The Pirate Bay is a strong brand in the US and most parties who have showed interest in the project are based there,” Pandeya said.

GGF is currently wrapping up the funding for the Pirate Bay acquisition and most of the investors are from the US, which is another argument in favor of moving operations from their current base in Sweden. Despite these ambitious plans, GGF will still have to move a few mountains to get copyright holders on board without losing the current visitors.

Without an unlimited library of music, movies and software the current users will leave the ship and move on to the next torrent site. With copyright infringing links still present, none of the copyright holders will agree to enter. The pirate’s dilemma.

Pandeya agreed that this is not an easy task to complete, but assured us that GGF is confident that they can pull it off, and that a NASDAQ listing is realistic once agreements with the major music and movie studios are in place.

Unfortunately, GGF’s CEO wouldn’t tell us what will happen to the site on the 27th of August when the transfer of ownership is scheduled take place, but he did inform us that no drastic changes will happen anytime soon. Again, this comment raises more questions than it answers.

“The majority of the Pirate Bay users wont even notice that anything has changed,” he told us. We hope for GGF’s sake that the copyright holders do see something different, or else they’ll be dragged to court before the summer ends.

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

For years The Pirate Bay’s users have been able to share files without censorship or charges, but this is all about to change. Rosso said that under the new management, the 3.7 million Pirate Bay users (or whatever userbase remains) will have to pay a monthly fee to access the site.

The money collected from user subscriptions and advertising revenue will then be used to pay off the copyright holders. The exact monthly fee is yet to be decided, but Rosso did confirm that the more files people share, the lower it will be.

“The more of your computer resources you contribute to the network, the less you pay down to zero,” Rosso told Cnet. “The user is in control.”

In addition, GGF hopes to cut deals with ISPs. “We hope to introduce a new BitTorrent technology that will optimize ISP traffic,” Rosso said. “We can save ISPs up to 80 percent of their resources. Half of the Internet traffic is file sharing and half of that traffic is Pirate Bay.”

Rosso conveniently fails to mention that a Pirate Bay where users have to pay for access will not be generating much traffic at all, so this part of GGF’s business model has to be rethought. BitTorrent does not depend on The Pirate Bay, and new trackers have already lined up to take over its job.

Details about the actual acquisition of The Pirate Bay are still scarce. Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde told TorrentFreak that GGF will get the domain names for thepiratebay (under all the tlds they exist) and a copy of the code and the database. If all goes well the transfer of ownership will take place at the end of July.

GGF has to raise $7.8 million in funding in order to buy the site. After that, the share holders – who’ve seen a drop in the stock price after the announced buy-out – have to vote in favor of the deal.

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