Just over a week after becoming available online in early November 2009, Ink pushed into TorrentFreak’s chart of top 10 most pirated movies with an incredible 400,000 downloads.

Unlike the majority of Hollywood movie bosses, the creators of Ink – Jamin and Kiowa Winans – decided to embrace their new-found pirate fans after the extra publicity pushed the movie to 16th place on IMDb’s movie meter and boosted DVD and Blu-ray sales. Kiowa wrote to TorrentFreak and said that the movie ending up on BitTorrent was “absolutely” the best thing that could’ve happened to it.

Now, Lars Sobiraj from German news outlet Gulli has interviewed Kiowa to see how things have progressed a couple of months on from the initial excitement.

As previously reported, Ink has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times, so just how many of those translated into real-world sales? Kiowa says that is really hard to put an exact figure on that – they haven’t sold a DVD or Blu-ray for every download but sales have unquestionably gone up.

Money also came in from other routes too. As the movie gained popularity on BitTorrent, many Ink downloaders suggested that there should be a ‘donate’ button on the movie’s website so that fans could give money freely.

“We put that [donation link] up at the urging of some of the downloaders with the message ‘if you have watched Ink online for free and would like to contribute what you can, click here’,” Kiowa explains.

“Guess what country has been the most generous? Germany! Germans have been twice as generous as Americans so… thank you Germany. We have also shipped a lot of Deluxe Bundle fan packs to Germany so Ink seems to be a big hit there.”

Gulli asked Kiowa if she felt the movie had fallen victim to piracy, a notion she strongly denies.

“I think to say victim is to characterize piracy as an all-together awful thing. The piracy of Ink is unquestionably responsible for its popularity around the world. Sure our trailers have been out for over a year and have had plenty of views outside the US, but we think that 70% of the illegal downloads are coming from outside of the US and we do get a good number of international buyers at our online store every day,” she explained.

Before Ink was pirated, the movie’s IMDb rating was a lowly 12,991. As reported in our earlier article, it reached 16 and even moved up to the 14th position at one stage. Incredibly it has stayed as one of the top 200 movies in the world for the last two months, a feat that would have been impossible without the extra exposure.

Looking forward to future distribution models, Kiowa feels that everything will change during the next 10 years as people demand instant and simple access to media and their TVs and computers merge together into one device.

“That said, I’m not sure what the revenue model will be for films,” she notes. “Hollywood producers are quickly finding out that the instant films start circulating on DVD they will wind up on torrent sites.”

Kiowa broadly puts BitTorrent users into two camps – those who want media in an instant and those who want it for free. Noting that there are those who fall into both categories, she acknowledges the challenges that lie ahead in figuring out a way to make this situation bring revenue to the filmmakers.

“I think a reasonably-priced instant download the moment the movie becomes available would largely cure the piracy issue so we will see how it all shakes out over the next several years,” she adds.

As most observers are aware, many music and movie companies consider torrent sites as entities to be crushed and in recent years have set about a strategy to achieve that. Gulli asked Kiowa if she believes that is the correct strategy to deal with the problem.

While one could argue that non-physical digital formats such as MP3 are part of the reason that piracy has flourished in recent years, Kiowa feels that the invention of the iPod has helped to reduce piracy, largely through the existence of competition from one service – iTunes. The movie industry needs to catch up.

“Until the equivalent of the iPod is invented for film or long-format video files I think that piracy is going to be a huge battle ground, one in which I doubt Hollywood will win,” Kiowa predicts.

“There is always a smarter programmer out there that can move faster than bureaucracy. The film industry really needs to set its sights on overhauling its distribution system. Right now there are horrible things like region-coded DVDs that tie up a film’s rights in various countries and this is what has made the film business plenty of money over the years.”

The industry needs to move its thinking to encompass global distribution, says Kiowa, not concentrate on pushing movies out to dozens of separate territories.

“We are going to keep all the rights to Ink and not give them away country-by-country so that when that iPod-for-movies emerges Ink can be the first film that debuts to the whole world,” she says, adding: “That is the hope anyway.”

Looking to the future, partner Jamin is currently working on scripts for two new films, one a sci-fi psychological thriller called ‘The Frame’ and another a sci-fi fantasy called ‘Myth of Man’.

“For the time being we’re just really happy that Ink is rolling along and gaining fans around the world. How ever people come to the film, we’re just happy that they are watching it, Kiowa concludes.

“As Jamin likes to say, the battle of independent films is not piracy, it’s obscurity. Hey – at least we’re winning that one!”

The full interview conducted by Lars Sobiraj, is available here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It might not come as a surprise to most people, but Bono’s wish is a little out of touch with reality. By mimicking the words of the record label bosses high up the food chain of the music industry, he fails to see where the real problem lies.

Over the last ten years the RIAA mounted the most aggressive anti-piracy campaign against file-sharers seen anywhere, collecting millions in settlements from thousands of households. The songwriters didn’t benefit much from that.

The RIAA also collected as much as $400m from settlements from the likes of Napster, KaZaA and Bolt. That money was supposed to go to the artists whose rights had been allegedly infringed upon, but the labels weren’t that keen to hand any of that over either, even when faced with the threat of lawsuits from the artists themselves.

The major labels, Warner, Sony, EMI and Universal, are currently being sued by another group of artists over sales of compilation albums featuring their music for which they haven’t been given a cent. The money they’re owed collectively is a staggering $6 billion. Looks like the ‘little guy’ is in trouble without the assistance of file-sharing.

While one set of corporates ripping off musicians doesn’t get a mention in Bono’s top 10, other supposed evil-doers do. Singing from the same sheet as his paymasters at Universal, Bono also takes aim at ISPs, claiming that their “swollen” profits “perfectly mirror” the lost revenues in the music business.

This “blaming of the messenger” will be a continuing theme in the next decade, and one which Bono dwells on for a moment, noting that if it’s possible to crack down on online child pornography in the US, and China has the ability to suppress online dissent, then it’s also perfectly possible to track downloads of copyrighted music.

Well, yes, of course it is. That’s been perfectly possible for the last decade, but what good does it do? The RIAA has largely given up suing individuals and even when countries like France pass fairly draconian legislation to have people removed from the Internet for sharing content, there are plenty of ways around it.

“The only thing protecting the movie and TV industries from the fate that has befallen music and indeed the newspaper business is the size of the files,” says Bono. “The immutable laws of bandwidth tell us we’re just a few years away from being able to download an entire season of “24” in 24 seconds. Many will expect to get it free.”

While it’s true that we are only a couple of years away from being to download huge amounts of data in just a few seconds and that will have an impact on the volumes of movie and TV show downloading, we can’t actually watch a full season of “24″ in 24 seconds. Real-time will suffice, though.

Right at this moment via sites like Watch-Movies-Online, it’s possible to view the very latest movies instantaneously. With the new streaming functionality available in the latest beta of uTorrent, the same can be achieved via torrent swarms.

Bono, the future is now. Suing Internet users does not work and blaming the ISPs will only prove counter-productive. Monitoring the Internet will prove futile. The only way to deal with piracy is to compete with it.

As we pointed out in our article covering the most downloaded TV shows of 2009, there is huge interest in on-demand TV and there are millions of viewers that can potentially bring in millions of dollars in revenue.

The growth in unauthorized downloading of TV shows and other media is a sign that consumers want something currently unavailable through the official channels, and while price is a factor, it is not necessarily all about ‘free’.

Serving the insatiable demand during the next decade at a reasonable price should be the main aim of the media industry, as locking down the Internet will not only suffocate their customers, but also their own business. That definitely won’t help the songwriters.

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

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

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

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

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

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

6 Ways Savvy Internet Users Will Neutralize Hadopi

Free options

MP3 Search Engines

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

Direct Downloads

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

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

Streaming Music and Video

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

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

Premium options

Overseas MP3 Sites

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

Newsgroups

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

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

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

Anonymous VPN

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

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

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

And they would be absolutely right.

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

The new year starts without The Pirate Bay tracker, which was closed in November, and also without Mininova, which saw its site being censored and stripped down by a Dutch court. To counter these losses, several public tracker-only services have made a comeback along with multiple torrent-only storage sites.

Where do we go from here? Let’s make some predictions.

Prediction 1: The Pirate Bay will cease to offer torrent links

After closing its tracker in 2009, The Pirate Bay will further evolve by removing all torrents from its index in the new year. The site will be reduced to a BitTorrent platform that no longer stores torrent files. Users will still be able to submit torrents through a third party service such as Torrage, but instead of linking to these torrent files, The Pirate Bay will list only Magnet links.

During the second half of 2010, The Pirate Bay four will appear before the Appeal Court. They will be found ‘not guilty’ and walk away free. Shortly after this victory in court, Pirate Bay’s YouTube killer The Video Bay will be released to the public.

Prediction 2: A BitTorrent client will be dragged to court

In 2009, the entertainment industry and authorities took legal action against various BitTorrent users and numerous sites. They left BitTorrent clients alone, but this will change in the new year. A coalition of copyright holders will file a lawsuit against one of the major BitTorrent clients, in an attempt to stop the ever increasing piracy rate.

The copyright holders will argue that BitTorrent clients play a vital role in downloading and uploading copyrighted files, and that the software is assisting in copyright infringement. They will demand that the torrent client implements a filtering mechanism to prevent users from downloading movies, music or games without the permission of the copyright holder.

Prediction 3: More people will use BitTorrent anonymously

2010 is the year where copyright holders gain more control over the Internet. Three-strikes legislation will be rolled out in various countries and global trade agreements such as ACTA will result in humongous fines for casual downloaders.

As a result of this newly founded Internet police state, millions of BitTorrent users will take measures to hide their identities online. By the end of the year, a quarter of all BitTorrent users will use a VPN service or similar anonymity software, with another quarter looking to do so in the following 12 months. This will make new legislation ineffective, and lead to further lobbying by the entertainment industry for even harsher anti-piracy measures.

This cycle will repeat itself until the entertainment industry decides to innovate.

Prediction 4: BitTorrent (live) streaming will take off

Advances in technology and growing broadband penetration have brought us to a point where BitTorrent-powered streaming solutions have become reality. BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen is working on a streaming implementation and experiments have shown that it is possible to stream high definition content.

In the second half of 2010, the first BitTorrent-powered YouTube competitors will be launched. These new BitTorrent sites will mainly offer streams of pirated movies and TV-shows. Live BitTorrent streaming will gain worldwide traction during the 2010 soccer world cup in South Africa. In the second half of the year, commercial implementations will follow, allowing broadcasters to stream live content at zero cost.

Prediction 5: uTorrent will become a resource hog

In 2010, uTorrent will be transformed from a lightweight BitTorrent application into a media portal similar to its nemesis, Vuze. Unlike Vuze, BitTorrent Inc. will continue to offer a lightweight uTorrent version for the the people who don’t want to make this switch, preventing a revolt among conservative uTorrent users.

The new uTorrent will be a resource hog, featuring a full blown search engine, video conversion, iTunes integration and a video player. The browser interface will allow uTorrent to be put on set-top boxes, which opens up the possibility for BitTorrent Inc. to reopen a new and improved version of their video store that can be easily hooked up to TVs.

Due to the changes, uTorrent will obviously have to remove its tagline ‘a (very) tiny BitTorrent client.’

—–

Happy new year to all of you from TorrentFreak. Let us know what your predictions are for 2010 in the comments below. We will feature the best on our side-blog FreakBits during the coming days.

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

As demand grew Tony’s business expanded year after year, but by 2001 and although still busy, profits were being squeezed. By 2004 demand started to fall dramatically and in 2005 he had to close down his factory unit. Tony told TorrentFreak there was a new competitor in town.

“File-sharing, P2P – call it what you like. When you asked a customer why he wasn’t buying anything, 9 times out of 10 it was ‘BitTorrent this, LimeWire that’. Add that to the fact that huge numbers of PC users have burners and fast broadband and it’s obvious why I had to get out and earn a living another way. We had it good for a while but I don’t think those days are coming back.”

Cheap pirate media had just got even cheaper. With the advent of super-fast broadband there was little point in visiting the local counterfeiter when everything was just a few clicks away for free on increasingly user-friendly BitTorrent and other file-sharing sites. But what happens to the physical piracy market when the file-sharing sites are no more? Maybe China is about to find out.

During the last month Chinese authorities shut down hundreds of video sites, including some of the biggest BitTorrent trackers such as BTChina, for operating without an appropriate government license.

Now, according to a Chinese illegal DVD vendor, these shutdowns could be set to bring him and his competitors a sudden windfall – the exact mirror image of what happened to Tony several years ago.

“Pirated DVDs are the cheapest choice for people without free downloads online,” he said. “I expect my sales to triple before Christmas.”

While it’s still early days, officials in charge of clearing illicit vendors from the streets said that they had not yet witnessed a surge in demand for illegal DVDs. A spokesman for a Chinese IP lawfirm said that while there could be an increased demand short-term, file-sharers are resilient.

“Simply shutting down those websites might have an immediate impact, but where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he said. “The problem is, if you shut down the top two BitTorrent sites, then people are simply going to go to number three, number four or number five on the list,” he said. “You can cut off the head but sooner or later two more will grow back.”

Time will tell if an Internet crackdown on video sites will force customers back onto the streets, but perhaps more intriguing is the answer to this question – will it push them back into the arms of the legitimate vendors of movies and music? It seems unlikely.

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

Private sites commonly operate a ratio-based system where users are expected to upload around the same amount of data as they download, to ensure that the tracker’s ‘economy’ stays healthy. Some sites experiment with different methods of achieving the same ends, but whatever the technique the result is often more users ’seeding’ than can be commonly found on similar torrents on public trackers, resulting in higher speeds and shorter download times.

For many in the BitTorrent community, private sites are where the real action can be found, but they also face some serious problems of their own. FileShareFreak has recently come up with a list of more than 300 private trackers launched in 2009 – of these only 179 remain online today. So what is causing the death of these sites before they even reach infancy?

In many cases sites are started by people who have no idea of the scale of the task that lies ahead of them and simply give up. Some sites are started by people who break off from other trackers after a dispute and believe they can do better and find out they can’t. While some thrive, others simply can’t carve themselves an audience or a big enough niche to satisfy their world-beating ambitions, while being hamstrung by their own invitation policy in an attempt to stay attractively exclusive.

Increasingly, however, more and more sites are simply running out of money, which is a fairly curious situation. After all, wasn’t BitTorrent created to make it really cheap to shift data around?

In themselves, the average private tracker and forum don’t cost that much to run, with many decent sized sites managing to operate for less than $150 each month – an amount easily covered by a generous sysop and a handful of small donations. But in recent years many private trackers have become very competitive – particularly with each other – as they literally race to bring content to their sites as quickly as possible and offering their demanding users the fastest download speeds.

What they are trying to achieve are great ‘pre-times.’ ‘Pre-time’ is a term used to describe how long it takes for a private tracker to make available a Scene release after it has been released (pre’d) on Scene topsites. The shorter the pre-time, the bigger the bragging rights, with the ultimate aim of the site winning the ‘race.’

Participating in these ‘races’ costs a lot of money, as the roles traditionally fulfilled by users (providing content and bandwidth) are increasingly taken on by the site itself. For many, this is becoming a crippling burden. So how much does this all cost?

Thanks to a smallish private site (6,000 users) known as StN (StoreTheNet) which chose to make its bills public as it tried and failed to justify turning their previously free site to a subscription model, we have an idea. (Please note: All the following information is already in the public domain, many private sites make no secret that they engage in this activity and StN will shutdown tomorrow.)

Around $200 per month goes to pay for site and IRC hosting and additional features to increase site security. For a ‘traditional’ torrent site setup (users provide all content and content bandwidth), that’s where the costs would end.

But of course, since this site and many others feel they have to become involved in ‘racing’ content to their site and providing ultimate download speeds, from here the costs start to skyrocket.

Around $330 is being paid every month to operators of so-called ‘topsites’ where the latest releases are ‘raced’ from, and while users of the site do contribute bandwidth via their normal sharing, these releases are initially seeded directly to the members via an unmetered bandwidth seedbox which StN says is approx $630 per month.

All these bills add up to approaching $1,200 in costs every month for what is essentially a pretty small site, so what’s the solution to bring costs down and avoid the death of yet more trackers during their first few months?

Well, first of all, many sites can achieve this amount through voluntary member donations, but a lot of private site members are also members of other trackers and they can’t possibly donate to them all. So inevitably, some are favored and others aren’t.

Another option for struggling sites (and many private site users will be stamping their feet with reddened faces at the mere suggestion) is to get out of racing altogether, instead letting users bring content and allowing BitTorrent and its users to propagate it naturally with their own home bandwidth and if they’re lucky, their own seedboxes. This will be much slower admittedly, but probably preferable to a site closing altogether. It also drastically reduces the security risk for the site itself.

Something that proves very successful for many sites is to find a niche. While all the latest movies may be a major attraction, they are also what cause the biggest burdens on a site in a myriad different ways. Niche material sites usually have great communities, great speeds and usually fly easily under the radar. Expect to see many more of these in the future.

There are hundreds of private sites out there that don’t operate in the fashion outlined above and don’t have the accompanying financial burdens, yet still achieve good times and speeds. Time will tell if the craze of the ‘race’ dies down in favor of lower running costs, or if the need for Blu-ray rips at lightning speeds prove simply too irresistible.

If the latter is true, in the end someone is going to have to pay for it.

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

This lenient stance towards casual copyright infringement is about to change. The Spanish government is currently drafting amendments to current legislation in order to “to protect intellectual property against piracy on the Internet”.

Although individual file-sharers aren’t the current focus of the amendments, it is feared that further changes could be made in future to include them. However, what is certain is that sites that offer links to copyrighted material are almost certainly set to face an aggressive crackdown.

Spain’s Minister for Culture, Ángeles González-Sinde, announced that under the proposed legislation, such pirate sites could be taken offline without a judicial order.

It is no surprise that these announcements have been met with huge resistance from Internet users, who feel that once again their rights are being violated in order to meet the demands of the entertainment industry.

In a response to the Government’s proposals, hacktivists have defaced the website of Promusicae, a music industry body that has lobbied long and hard for more strict copyright laws in Spain.

The hackers have replaced the site’s content with a manifesto in which they call for a real reform of current copyright law, a limit placed on the power of the copyright cartels and the placement of Internet users’ rights above the commercial interests of copyright holders.

Below is the manifesto in full, as it appears on the defaced Promusicae website.

Manifesto on the rights of Internet users

A group of journalists, bloggers, professionals and creators want to express their firm opposition to the inclusion in a Draft Law of some changes to Spanish laws restricting the freedoms of expression, information and access to culture on the Internet. They also declare that:

1 .- Copyright should not be placed above citizens’ fundamental rights to privacy, security, presumption of innocence, effective judicial protection and freedom of expression.

2 .- Suspension of fundamental rights is and must remain an exclusive competence of judges. This blueprint, contrary to the provisions of Article 20.5 of the Spanish Constitution, places in the hands of the executive the power to keep Spanish citizens from accessing certain websites.

3 .- The proposed laws would create legal uncertainty across Spanish IT companies, damaging one of the few areas of development and future of our economy, hindering the creation of startups, introducing barriers to competition and slowing down its international projection.

4 .- The proposed laws threaten creativity and hinder cultural development. The Internet and new technologies have democratized the creation and publication of all types of content, which no longer depends on an old small industry but on multiple and different sources.

5 .- Authors, like all workers, are entitled to live out of their creative ideas, business models and activities linked to their creations. Trying to hold an obsolete industry with legislative changes is neither fair nor realistic. If their business model was based on controlling copies of any creation and this is not possible any more on the Internet, they should look for a new business model.

6 .- We believe that cultural industries need modern, effective, credible and affordable alternatives to survive. They also need to adapt to new social practices.

7 .- The Internet should be free and not have any interference from groups that seek to perpetuate obsolete business models and stop the free flow of human knowledge.

8 .- We ask the Government to guarantee net neutrality in Spain, as it will act as a framework in which a sustainable economy may develop.

9 .- We propose a real reform of intellectual property rights in order to ensure a society of knowledge, promote the public domain and limit abuses from copyright organizations.

10 .- In a democracy, laws and their amendments should only be adopted after a timely public debate and consultation with all involved parties. Legislative changes affecting fundamental rights can only be made in a Constitutional law.

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

In reality, the truth proved somewhat different.

No one could argue Grokster had been defeated, but the consequences for file-sharing were limited. The real impact was that providers of file-sharing services could now be held liable if it could be shown that they promoted their products for infringing purposes. Careful advertising was all that was required. Furthermore, the decision only affected the United States. Considering the epic scale of the case and the supposed victory, the results were far from devastating.

And now, 4 years later, Mininova, another file-sharing giant that rode on the crest of the BitTorrent wave since the Grokster verdict, has effectively been forced to close down the vast majority of its site, prompting many to feel that BitTorrent is heading for its twilight years.

However, with careful consideration, it may just be possible to create another Mininova that avoids its namesake’s fate, since the court’s decision was not solely related to the existence of links to infringing content, i.e the .torrent files.

The DMCA is widely known in BitTorrent circles. It is the US copyright act (but accepted by many indexers and trackers regardless of location) which many sites quote when offering to take down torrents that link to infringing content. “If you’re the content owner, let us know,” they say, “..and we’ll take down torrents that link to your works.” Complying with so-called ‘DMCA takedown requests’ is widely accepted as a way to stay within the law.

Although Mininova operated such a system, comments by the site’s staff on their forums called their commitment to it into doubt. There are many samples given in the court’s decision, here are just a few. It’s worth noting that many of them date back to 2005, when users, staff and site admins would have been much more relaxed.

“May have been just a take down request (…) i’d say just re upload it (…) thanks for sharing” (posted by site moderator)

“Thanks for reporting, I deleted the fake version and uploaded the correct one” (posted by site admin)

“I made a mistake of downloading a shareware version of Monopoly Jr. only to find out it only allows you to play it for 15 minutes and then it becomes useless,” said a user. “Check the site, it’s there now” (posted by site admin).

Mininova also took pride in their efforts to proactively filter fake files (including in the decision are comments by staff who admit to downloading material to check if it is indeed as labeled), viruses, malware, pornographic and drug-related material, but this seems to have backfired by the corresponding lack of commitment to proactively filter copyright content in the same manner.

The site also carried some very specific categories for its torrents. Not just ‘movies’ or ‘TV’, but also sections such as “CSI” and “Desperate Housewives” which are widely known to be copyright works. One section highlighted in the decision was labeled ‘Disney’. The court decided that since so little Disney material is copyright-free, the section could have little other use than to infringe.

Mininova has never denied making profits (it is a company after all) and the court ruled that the site encouraged and profited “from infringements of copyrights and related rights of the holders represented by Brein.”

To see things from a different perspective, TorrentFreak has been discussing the closure of Mininova with Aldor Nini at digital distribution and anti-piracy solutions company, Easycom, who has been following the case closely.

Interestingly, Aldor informs us that 8 out of 10 torrents on Mininova were not covered by the BREIN lawsuit, which makes us wonder if the site could’ve stayed alive if the other 2 out of 10 were removed before the court’s hand was forced.

“We are very sorry to see a platform like Mininova shut down millions of torrent files,” he told TorrentFreak. “Based on our research we have found out that only 21% of the content was infringing rights of content owners for content used in the proceedings by BREIN. This 21% could probably be the most popular files on the platform, but we cannot confirm this for sure.”

“However, Mininova’s decision to completely remove everything was to 100% conform with what the judge has ruled. A 100% working filter was requested, and the removal of all non moderated user submitted torrents is the only 100% filter available nowadays,” he told us.

In a similar way that file-sharing applications similar to Grokster’s continue to flourish post the ‘big’ 2005 verdict, torrent sites can follow suit, if they are prepared to adapt.

“We do not think that this judgment will directly apply to other torrent portals at all,” Aldor told us, “but rather the way Mininova was operated as a torrent portal.”

Aldor has some interesting thoughts on how torrent sites can continue, without making the same mistakes as Mininova. He argues that torrent sites should behave neutrally, meaning that if they remove fake and spam comments they should filter copyrighted content too.

Based on Aldor’s reasoning, it seems another option is for sites to switch to user-based moderation, where content is automatically removed after a fixed number of downvotes. The bottom line is that the site’s operators (or moderators) should stay neutral.

Further suggestions are to take the takedown procedure seriously and make it easy to use. Sites should notify users that copyrights are to be respected and refrain from using specific categories (such as Disney). Again, based on the basis that site staff should stay neutral, user submitted tags should be fine.

Other more problematic ideas are the increased co-operation with content owners and to “stop thinking in black and white” – surely great advice for both sides and ultimately, the only long term solution.

Not making any profit or donating part of the site’s income to innovative music artists and film makers, and steering clear of scammy advertisers could be further plus points.

Aldor concludes that the lessons are there to be learned from Mininova’s demise.

“The next torrent portals, which will cover the next millions of torrent files, will hopefully learn from this situation. All in all Mininova’s partial shut-down will not influence the worldwide BitTorrent activity, it has just set up the rules for the successors of Mininova.”

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

As the copyright industries ramp up their lobbying, the government is finding it more and more difficult to maintain their current position, and is currently examining new ways to deal with illicit file-sharing.

At the opening day of a conference bringing together leaders of the telecommunications industry, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Vivane Reding, said that if the Spanish government implements measures to disconnect copyright infringers from the Internet without the oversight of a judge, it risks coming into conflict with the EU.

“Spanish measures that allow for the disruption of Internet access without a fair hearing before a judge, are certain to clash with the European Union,” she told the Telecommunications Market Commission (CMT) conference in Barcelona yesterday.

Criticizing France’s Hadopi legislation, Reding stressed that repressing people would not solve the problems of Internet piracy, noting that disconnections may even run counter to the “rights and freedoms which have become part of Europe’s values since the French Revolution.”

Furthermore, the “fundamental freedoms” of EU citizens which Reding insists forbids countries from disconnecting alleged file-sharers without a procedure involving a judge, also applies to Internet service providers.

This is of particular interest to customers of Ireland’s largest ISP, Eircom. Earlier this year IRMA – which controls 90% of Ireland’s recorded music and represents the likes of EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner – reached a private agreement with the ISP to implement a 3 strikes deal for alleged pirates, with IRMA discontinuing legal action against it in return.

The arrangement is an entirely private one, with no judicial oversight, which will likely bring it into conflict with the EU.

IRMA also took legal action against BT, Ireland’s largest ISP, and the country’s largest cable operator, UPC Ireland, to force them to follow suit.

However, last week IRMA discontinued its lawsuit against BT Ireland, as the ISP has already transferred its Internet customers to Vodafone. It is unclear if IRMA will now go after Vodafone, but the music group says it will continue to pursue UPC.

In addition, it will be interesting to see how the statement by the European Commission affects the Digital Economy Bill that was presented in the UK last week. The proposed legislation will also call for a disconnection of repeated copyright infringers, a measure that’s proving unpopular among the public. Thousands of people have already petitioned against the new bill.

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

What bothered us the most is that the item conveniently mixed file-sharing with commercial piracy, while linking it to organized crime, human trafficking and child prostitution. This setup is a bit misleading to say the least. That aside, the claimed role that piracy plays in organized crime is based on an MPAA-funded study we have previously debunked.

The MPAA’s stance didn’t really surprise us that much though. Their job is to manipulate public opinion in the hope that less people will engage in illicit file-sharing. But it was disappointing to see that CBS didn’t care to bring someone in to counter the arguments of the anti-piracy lobbyists.

No, instead they managed to get director Steven Soderbergh on, who joined the movie industry trade group by providing more twisted facts. Reciting the MPAA’s propaganda, Soderbergh said he wished the Internet was never invented. “Piracy is costing Hollywood $6 billion a year at the box office,” he told the reporter, adding that “as the margins of profit shrink, fewer projects get made, which means fewer people go to work.”

These statements are both inaccurate, or at least highly doubtful. The $6 billion statistic Soderbergh is referring to actually comes from an MPAA-funded report for which the sources were never revealed. In fact, the MPAA itself had to release a statement saying that they “made a mistake” with one of the figures, but they continue to use the report nonetheless.

Similarly, Soderbergh’s claim that “fewer projects get made” was debunked only last week after Sony boss Michael Lynton made a similar statement. The opposite seems to be true. Hollywood is far from bankrupt. In the past decade box office earnings actually increased significantly.

The only piece of the entire item that was pretty accurate and worth watching was the explanation of how BitTorrent works. John Malcolm, a former Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the MPAA shows that his work for the trade group paid off, as it turned him into a BitTorrent expert (video below).

The entire piece is disappointing nevertheless. It fails to ask the questions about why people download movies illegally and acts as if the movie industry is a powerless victim. Perhaps Hollywood should start to see the millions of illegal downloaders as potential customers instead of thieves. There’s a huge demand for online entertainment, so why not compete with piracy instead of spending millions of dollars fighting it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Earlier this month, blogger Aldor Nini (who also works for anti-piracy solutions company Easycom) wrote an independent article that was published on BuildBlog.de.

The post titled “UseNeXT: Legitimate downloading of pirated movies” gave a highly detailed account of UseNeXT’s operations, along with information on how the service operates in respect of pirated movie content. For anyone interested in the company or Usenet in general (and can take the anti-piracy objective and language with a pinch of salt), it is a must-read – but not without controversy.

As many people who have written potentially negative pieces or forum posts about UseNeXT will confirm, the company is very quick to notice such items, and in this case the reaction was no different.

Within two days the author and publisher of the post received “pre-litigation” letters from UseNeXT’s lawyers, ordering it to censor certain claims made in the article. UseNeXT says that they received information that the article had been sent to an employee at Warner Bros and are insisting that claims made within are erroneous and will negatively affect UseNeXT’s public image.

Article author Aldor Nini gave TorrentFreak a list of claims made in the article which he says are being disputed by UseNeXT’s lawyers;

The article claims that:

Undeterred, Nini says that he stands by his claims. “The comments are correct and true,” he told TorrentFreak, “and we’re looking forward to proving that!”

Nini also points out a section about free-speech on UseNeXT’s website, translated from German below;

“Everyone has the right to gain knowledge as well as to make public and disseminate, in written and spoken, his word by using the UseNeXT service. Nobody should be afraid to be discriminated due to his religious or political position by using the Usenet.”

Nini says that he believes that this is a great statement that should apply to everyone. Therefore his article will stand uncensored on both Usenet and the web.

TorrentFreak will monitor the situation closely and report on further developments and (possible) threats against ourselves.

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

Yesterday the court heard from iiNet barrister Richard Cobden, who described how
several of the plaintiffs and members of the MPAA had previously entered into contracts with BitTorrent Inc, the source of the official BitTorrent software.

He said that the logos of these studios appeared on BitTorrent.com (placed directly under the ‘free download’ link for the official BitTorrent client) and also on Mininova.

This lead Cobden to declare that the studios “….have engaged, at least from the logos on BitTorrent Inc, in the promotion of BitTorrent, the vehicle for all infringement in this case.”

Today AFACT barrister Tony Bannon criticized iiNet for these claims, describing them as “an excellent example of iiNet’s intent to focus not on legally relevant and factually indisputable matters but to focus on the legally irrelevant.”

Bannon said that the claims show that iiNet wishes to give the court the impression that his clients encouraged the exact same copyright infringement they now complain about in this case, going on to call the claims “legally irrelevant” and noting that the contacts with BitTorrent.com were terminated last year.

While Bannon insisted the details of those contracts are confidential, he was prepared to reveal that they included terms which required BitTorrent Inc to filter out torrents from their search engine which linked to illicit copies of the studios’ movies. He also said that iiNet knew that the contracts had been terminated but had not relayed that fact to the court, or when it spoke to members of the media.

However, an iiNet spokesperson seemed unrepentant. “The fact is the logos are still on the BitTorrent sites and serves the argument we are making, which is a couple of clicks away from where the logos are, you can download things. Part of the argument we are making in relation to all that is when it comes to what are ‘reasonable steps’ for iiNet to take about illegal downloading when they are not even asking BitTorrent to do the same thing?”

Earlier this week, iiNet had presented information to the court which showed that its competitors – other ISPs operating in a similar manner – also did not give in to AFACT demands that they should disconnect their copyright-infringing customers, backing up claims that iiNet had been singled out by the movie industry.

Tony Bannon criticized iiNet for producing this evidence, describing it as meaningless and “….an attempt to take the case outside of the real issues.”

AFACT boss Neil Gane briefly appeared on the witness stand and was questioned by iiNet barrister Richard Cobden. The exchange ended in a dispute over what confidential material can or cannot be used in the case.

Judge Cowdroy will decide on the issue by next Monday when Neil Gane retakes the stand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Meanwhile, a report from a political advisory committee in The Netherlands is calling for harsher copyright legislation. Presently, downloading movies and music for personal use in The Netherlands is seen as “fair use” and not punishable by law. In their advice to the government, the committee suggests changing this position in order to reduce the mass downloading that they say has become a national sport in the country.

Interestingly, the committee recognizes that the entertainment industry caused the piracy problem themselves, at least in part. They therefore say that tougher anti-piracy legislation should only be implemented if there are enough legal alternatives, something that’s lacking in The Netherlands at the moment. This all sounds very reasonable compared to what is being proposed in the UK.

The long awaited Digital Britain report was published this week, a road map of how the entertainment industries and ISPs should tackle online piracy. In short, the government proposes to track down and warn people who share copyrighted content. The personal details of repeated copyright infringers will be handed over to the entertainment industry, if they have a court order.

In reality this means that everything stays pretty much the same. UK ISPs have already started warning their copyright infringing customers last year, and the details of many alleged downloaders have been given out to the rights holders represented by law firms such as Davenport Lyons and ACS:Law. However, if the warning letters fail to decrease the piracy rate dramatically, things may get very nasty in the UK.

The report points out that when the warning letters fail, ISPs may be forced to reduce the connection speeds and download limits of individual customers, block access to sites such as The Pirate Bay or pull a Comcast and block BitTorrent traffic altogether. In addition, ISPs may block specific ports if needed and spy on their customers download habits though DPI techniques.

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse we stumbled upon some worrying news surfacing in Lithuania this week. The local anti-piracy body LANVA has proposed a rather far reaching agreement to the country’s ISPs. LANVA suggests that the ISPs start monitoring their customers’ browsing and downloading habits and report any suspect behavior back to them.

In addition, the anti-piracy group wants access to the ISP’s servers within 24 hours if needed, and the personal details of any of the ISP’s customers who are suspected of copyright infringement. The content creators on the other hand will have to equip all their products with DRM to “minimize” the piracy rate.

Not only do these proposals violate several human rights, the proposal to add DRM to all products will only have the opposite effect when it comes to reducing piracy. LANVA’s boss has previously received death threats for going after pirates and we’re beginning to suspect that this has seriously impacted his sanity.

It’s doubtful that these proposals throughout Europe will have the desired effect. If anything, it will encourage those who use file-sharing networks to share copyrighted works to become more cautious. Indeed, less then a week after the anonymous BitTorrent download application BitBlinder launched they already have 30,000 users, and The Pirate Bay’s VPN service currently has close to 200,000 people on the waiting list.

If people don’t like these laws, they will find a way to neutralize them. There is no technical solution to the piracy ‘problem’.

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

In film circles, Pallotta is known for his outstanding animation work that defines most of his work thus far. His last film, A Scanner Darkly starred Keanu Reeves and was a smash hit on BitTorrent. With more than a million downloads, the movie earned a place in our list of Top 10 most downloaded movies four weeks in a row.

Pallotta’s latest work is something totally different though. It’s a follow up documentary to film legend Martin Scorsese’s cult-classic American Boy that was shot more than thirty years ago. In American Boy Scorsese documented the life of his friend Steven Prince, who was also the inspiration for one of the best known scene’s in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. With American Prince Pallotta continues the saga.

Since Scorsese’s original documentary is a rarity nowadays, Pallotta had to ‘pirate’ much of his material on BitTorrent sites and YouTube. In return, Pallotta is giving the film away for free on BitTorrent. This of course caught our attention and we decided to catch up with the director to lear a little more about his motivation to embrace BitTorrent.

TF: First off, A Scanner Darkly – which you produced – became quite successful on BitTorrent and was downloaded by hundreds of thousands of people. Were you aware of that at the time? What do you think of people who use BitTorrent to download the film?

Tommy: Really, A Scanner Darkly was successful on BitTorrent? GREAT! I wish it was more so, I have to admit, I get jealous when I look at the top 100 downloads on the trackers and I don’t see my movies. In fact, part of the reason I am releasing American Prince on BitTorrent is for the hope that it breaks the top 100. I live in Amsterdam now, so the only way I can keep up with some of my favorite shows, events, and films is to download. I think it is great, especially for filmmakers of niche movies. My movies tend to get limited releases and are more of the cult film status, so the initial release is often overlooked or simply the movie is unavailable in many areas. For me as a filmmaker it is most important that the work I make get seen. I feel for many people and places, downloading is the only way they will get to see my movies. Waking Life is a movie that I produced that is a pretty interesting example of that. It seems more popular today that when it came out in 2001. I think BitTorrent and steaming sites like YouTube are completely responsible for that phenomena. Since I use BitTorrent, I wanted to give back to the community, that was part of the motivation is releasing American Prince via BitTorrent.

TF: The MPAA has often argued that the movie industry loses billions of dollars through piracy. Others think that it has close to no impact. What’s your position in the ongoing ‘piracy debate’?

Tommy: Well, everyone has a different opinion. It is pretty simple to me: The exact same thing that happened to the music industry will happen to the film industry. I suspect the film industry knows that and is trying to hold off the inevitable as long as they can. My guess is that they will try to make as much money as long as they can until they have to change or someone comes in and organizes and unifies the industry in the way Apple did for music. But even that is tricky because obviously Apple benefited more than the music industry. So they should be looking at alternative revenue streams, I find it hard to believe that many DVDs will be sold a few years from now. I would rather embrace new technologies and distribution methods, I feel this gives me greater and more immediate access to an audience.

TF: For American Prince you’ve used material from BitTorrent and YouTube, which is great. Did you license all these clips, or are they pirated copies?

Tommy: Yes we used material from BitTorrent and YouTube for American Prince and no, we did not license them. I did receive the Master copy of American Boy from Steven Prince himself, but we found a copy via BitTorrent that was better than that copy, so we used that! Plus, there is some confusion as to who actually owns the rights to American Boy. Part of the motivation of this film was to get a proper release for Scorsese’s American Boy. I felt this film would help uncover who has the rights and hopefully get it in front of a larger audience.

TF: Why did you decide to release American Prince for free on BitTorrent and what do you expect from it?

Tommy: Scorsese’s American Boy has been and is still generally unavailable for over 30 years, yet so many filmmakers have been influenced by it. The way we saw it is through multi-generational VHS tapes. Now with BitTorrent, there is a whole new audience and generation ready to be influenced by that film and I hope mine. Steven Prince is a gold mine of future cinema scenes and I hope a whole new generation of filmmakers will understand how he has influenced American Cinema. My biggest expectation is that the most people possible will watch my film! Also, I would really like to encourage people to talk about the film, with each other as well as on the Internet. It would make me happy to see Wikipedia entries and IMDB boards as well as Internet sites. I would love for people to get together and have screenings of it with their friends, or for universities to suggest to their class for the students to watch it. I look at American Prince as the film school I never had, what I always imagined film school to be.

TF: Do you think that the Internet and file-sharing technology will play an important role in shaping the future of film distribution?

Tommy: I absolutely believe how we watch and share movies will shape the future of film distribution. I believe it will have such a profound influence that it will even change how movies are made. I think it is a win-win for the filmmakers and the viewers. Filmmakers will have a more direct reach with audience and viewers have more to choose from. I wanted to release this film in support of file sharing and to prove to myself and others that it can have a profoundly positive effect.

TF: Amen.

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

The current wording of the proposals have strong opposition in Brazil and an online petition against the legislation has more than 148,000 signatures. There has even been opposition from other politicians, with the secretary of legislative affairs Peter Abramovay commenting, “This surveillance could turn everyone on the Internet into a criminal. The Internet is a space of freedom par excellence, and should not be a place of fear,” he said.

However, the senator pushing for the legislation should look closer to home, since an investigation by Congressoemfoco has turned up something of significant interest on the Brazilian senate’s intranet, which runs counter to their mission statement shown below;

To provide and manage solutions for information technology and communications for the Senate, and improve work processes, contributing to the excellence and ethics fulfillment of its institutional role for the benefit of Brazilian society

To Congressoemfoco’s surprise, what they discovered on the government servers was a small mountain of copyrighted movies, music and games in several folders. These folders are available to the Senate’s staff and the senators themselves, including Eduardo Azeredo, the senator pushing for tough legislation against pirates.

Accessing the material proved easy enough. Anyone on the network could make a few clicks to get access to the folders. One of them around 6.4Gb in size contained music from Nelly Furtado through to albums by Megadeth, along with Brazilian acts and more well known groups such as Pink Floyd. Other folders included many top-rated PC games. Movies didn’t escape either, with Hollywood movies such as Iron Man, a DVD screener copy of Gran Torino and Happy Feet, all available for download by those running the country.

Once the government found out about this situation, they took steps to remedy it, promising an ‘internal investigation’ although sources suggest that this will likely amount to little more than a quick band-aid application.

“A network with more than ten thousand users is not easy [to monitor],” they said.

Thanks Luiz

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

So Tuesday last week, May 26th, the Russian Federation Ministry of Internal Affairs Investigation Committee under the Ministry of Internal Affairs conducted a raid against the founders the Interfilm BitTorrent tracker.

During the raid on the site’s Moscow headquarters, the police arrested the founders of Interfilm, a married couple known online as ‘Ripper’ and ‘Nadezhda’ and several site staff. The authorities claim that the Interfilm tracker is a major source of cammed movies and also has an arrangement with piracy groups outside the country to exchange the latest releases.

Russian anti-piracy group RAPO (a founder member of the MPA) claims that the site carried advertising and although users had free access to the site, higher download speeds could be achieved by making a payment to the site’s owners.

Although Interfilm reportedly went down after the raid, it is now apparently fully operational, hosted by LeaseWeb in The Netherlands.

Russian media is speculating that the owners of Interfilm are facing up to six years in jail and a fine of 500,000 rubles (approx $16,200) if convicted under Part 3 of Article 146 of the Criminal Code.

According to lawyer Victor Naumov, a legal loophole which saved the owners of AllofMP3 is unlikely to help the operators of Interfilm. “In the past there were different interpretations of legislation in the field of copyright, but now if a distributor of films or music is not in a licensing agreement with the rights holders, the violation is right there,” he said.

Following the arrests, the Producers Guild of Russia says it intends to push for changes in the law which would force ISPs to prevent illegal file-sharing.

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