Their scheme has attracted much negative press, even provoking statements from Members of the House of Lords in the UK.

“Of late, we have seen a proliferation of lawyers’ letters, acting for the pornography industry, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, pointed out, often against innocent people asserting copyright claims and threatening court action,” said Lord Clement-Jones recently.

Now there has been a surprising “Christmas update” from ACS:Law. Referencing earlier legal threats they made to thousands of individuals in the UK (you’ve been caught file-sharing, we can prove it, and if you don’t pay up we’re taking you to court), the law firm has announced that it will drop many of its cases.

As Christmas approaches, here at ACS Law we have been working hard dealing with our file sharing projects. We have been reviewing all cases which are currently open, and a good number of these cases have been dropped, where we do not either consider litigation to be a viable option or to be beneficial to our clients.

So, despite the “forensic” standard proof the company claims to hold on individuals, it appears that, as we’ve said many times here on TorrentFreak, this scheme is all about money. If individuals have no money to pay, ACS:Law cannot get blood from a stone.

Furthermore, when trying to force others to pay up who may actually have the money, faced with holding a single IP address as evidence and absolutely no way of identifying a specific individual sitting at a keyboard and conducting or authorizing the actual infringement, they have little choice but to back down.

James Bench, who works with Being Threatened, a consumer group which offers resources to individuals who are targeted by ACS:Law, says that those accused are becoming increasingly empowered by the knowledge currently available.

“Recently leaked documents exposed the inner workings of the process, dubbed by some ‘speculative invoicing,’ showing that claims are assigned a ‘litigation rating’,” he told TorrentFreak.

“Factors affecting the rating tended not to be based on the evidence supporting the claim but on the appointment of legal representation, technical ’savvy’ and the finances of the client – or lack thereof,” he added.

So does this mean that ACS:Law will be backing down completely? Hardly. The law firm says that following the court orders they obtained in November, more threatening ‘pay up or else’ letters will be sent out in January 2010.

Anyone receiving a letter from ACS:Law should refrain from replying to the company until they have spoken to the support team at BeingThreatened.com, who will give completely free advice.

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.

James Monaghan from the company has recently taken part in the BERR consultation on file-sharing so has been watching this week’s developments closely. The government has set a deadline for responses to its plans (which include disconnecting alleged file-sharers from the Internet) of 29th September and, like many others, James has responded to the new statement by sending his thoughts in to the consultation. His feelings will resonate with many TorrentFreak readers. Here they are in full;

Monaghan Media Response To Latest BERR Statement

There are an estimated 7 million file-sharers (your figures) in the UK, and you want to reduce that number by 70%. 70% is 4.9 million. A fair trial is fundamental to democracy. To fairly prosecute 4.9 million citizens is an optimistic suggestion when currently Her Majesty’s Court System holds 200,000 criminal cases per year. This would suggest it is going to take 25 years to reduce file-sharing by 70%. This is only dealing with the 70% of today’s file-sharing with no regard to the expected increase of file-sharing. Research suggests that the number of file-sharers increases every day, 63% of people aged 14-24 now admit file-sharing, with 83% of those file-sharing every day.

To prosecute 4.9million people you will also need evidence. No evidence exists. Anywhere.

The ‘evidence’ championed by the failing sector of the media industry – the physical distribution sector – has been proven time and time again to be incredibly flawed. I refer here to the elderly couple who the copyright industry began legal proceedings against for downloading hardcore gay nazi pornographic film ‘Army Fuckers’ (1) among others. I also refer to the law firm Davenport-Lyons, who sent out 15,000 letters telling people to pay a small ‘fine’ (usually about £600) and they’d make a lawsuit against them (for file-sharing) go away. This is what is known as ‘extortion’.

Luckily for the consumers, and all of those of us who enjoy freedom from criminals, Davenport-Lyons were quickly picked up by BBC’s Watchdog program, and promptly disappeared.

I note though, that in today’s (25th August 2009) response, you don’t mention a fair trial. In fact you don’t mention any opportunity for those accused with this flawed and faulty evidence to defend themselves. Which rather gives the impression that there will be no opportunity for the accused to defend themselves. What you do say is this:

“…the previous proposals, whilst robust, would take an unacceptable amount of time to complete in a situation that calls for urgent action…”

So what you’ve stated, is that it is impossible for your draconian anti-file-sharing measures to be implemented fairly. Which is correct. What this means, is that this route of anti-file-sharing legislation, the ‘criminalise-7-million-of-your-citizens’ route is wholly unfeasible, impossible to implement without massive cost to the tax-payer, and impossible to implement without massive damage to the progress of the UK’s creative industries. What this does not mean is that instead of fair trials and the assumption that the accused are innocent until proven guilty, everyone should be presumed guilty until they are proven innocent. This is perverse as the accused would not then have the opportunity to be proven innocent.

In my previous contribution to this consultation, I briefly touched upon the fact that the industry has never been able to show any loss, financial or otherwise, has been caused by file-sharing. I’ve gone into a little more detail here, which shows, with numbers, evidence, and references, (rather than the usual hearsay provided by the industry) to show that there isn’t a financial loss to any of the most downloaded films this year (so far).

You’ll note that all of the top ten most downloaded films so far this year (3) are all incredible commercial successes, each making hundreds of millions of pounds. Watchmen, the most downloaded film with 16.9 million illegal downloads, still made $185,248,060. How can anyone argue that file-sharing has caused it a financial loss? Benjamin Button was the second most downloaded film so far, being downloaded 13.1 million times illegally. It made $332,860,689. A financial loss? I think not.

What we are seeing here, is the end of one type of business: the physical distribution of digital products. We are in a world where DVDs are old technology, in less than ten years Blu-ray disks will go the same way as LPs, as tape cassettes, as VHS tapes, and as DVDs. The internet however, has outlived the DVD. And it will outlive the Blu-ray disk. And it will outlive whatever format ‘succeeds’ the Blu-ray disk. The internet is here to stay. What we are seeing in the Creative Industry is a very small sector (distribution), which makes massive money from a system which is made redundant by the internet.

It is not the responsibility of the government, of the ISPs to prop up a failing business. If a business is failing, it is the responsibility of that business to look at itself, at its actions and rethink its operations in order to save itself.

It is wholly unfeasible to enforce any rule against filesharers, and impossible, literally impossible to enforce according to law.

I reiterate the statement I made in my first contribution to this consultation, the majority of my audiences watch my films over the BitTorrent system, a system so revolutionarily brilliant that it means I, an independent film-maker, can distribute a film in full High Definition to hundreds of millions of viewers with absolutely no cost incurred to me, where normally global film distribution costs several tens of millions of pounds. I think it is acceptable to say then, that my company and I are at the forefront of the industry.

As someone who uses file-sharing systems, not only to gain access to media which I never could’ve before, but also to distribute my own contributions to the UK’s Creative Industry, I am utterly shocked and appalled by the lengths to which your government will go to make my audiences, my peers and myself criminals.

This is not the end of the creative industry. I can say this with great confidence, as someone working in the industry. The industry is currently undergoing a change, a natural change, a change that it must undergo. Although this is not the end of the creative industry, it is the end of a disgusting sector of the industry which has been a parasite on the industry for the past half-century, milking it for as much money as it can, promoting false inflation of the rest of the industry only to increase its own profits.

The criminals here are not the teenagers downloading films and music, but the global corporations that extort money from artists and consumers alike, and who operate in a manner not unfamiliar with sinister global criminal networks.

It is the remit of democratically elected Government to protect the citizens, film-makers, and business-owners from the failing business model which threatens freedom, civil liberty, and creative business’ economic future.

Finally, I take this quote from your statement today:

“…As ever we would need to ensure any such measure fully complied with both UK and EU legislation…”

Disconnecting people from the internet does not fully comply with EU legislation. In fact it directly contravenes EU legislation. I am referring to amendment 138/46 which was adopted on the 6th May 2009 in response to French attempts to implement a system almost exactly the same as the one proposed here. A system which was declared unconstitutional by the French High Court. You will be aware that amendment 138/46 declared that access to the internet was a fundamental human right.

Not only do your proposals directly contravene European Law, but the certainty of wrongful sanctions being taken against citizens opens the government up to legal action. The fact that cutting off an entire household’s internet punishes everyone in that household and not just the ‘accused file-sharer’ is near-certain to breach the government’s ‘Every Child Matters’ directive where children are punished for others’ actions. The probability of cutting off the internet of those who need the internet to survive, the long-term sick, for example, or the disabled, further opens up the government to attack.

Is this the route that my government wants to pursue? Or should the government perhaps listen to its’ citizens’ outrage and stop neglecting them in favour of the power and massive wealth offered by the global corporations who’s only motivation is furthering said power and wealth?

Yours faithfully,
James Monaghan

Monaghan Media

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

If you have received a letter from lawyers Davenport Lyons (or indeed any other law-firm operating the same business model) accusing you of illegally sharing games, videos or music, this article will provide serious food for thought and give you the tools and knowledge to make your voice heard at a government level. It is unacceptable that people are being wrongfully accused. We believe that your names and addresses should not have been handed over to these lawyers in the first place, and that you should not have received a threatening letter.

This is a guest post from Michael Coyle of Lawdit Solicitors who is currently defending many of those accused in the Dream Pinball, Colin McRae Dirt, Call of Juarez and more recently, the various porn titles cases brought by DigiProtect in the UK. (Intros, links, editing and letter template added by TorrentFreak/Penumbra)

Alleged File-Sharers: Why the Information Commissioner Has Let You Down

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is a non-departmental public body reporting directly to Parliament. It is the office dealing with the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000, the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 in England and Wales.

UK ISPs were ordered earlier this year [and in 2007] by the High Court to disclose information relating to its customer’s data, based on information provided to them by amongst others, video games companies. The information sought was based on the customer’s IP address. Pursuant to CPR 31.18, lawyers applied for an order that the ISPs disclose the full name, postal address and telephone number of the subscriber of each of the IP addresses supplied.

The game plan was to match each IP address with an individual and write to them with a hefty threatening letter and a request for £500-600. If this sum was not paid, court action was threatened, costing tens of thousands of pounds. It all seemed fairly conclusive. The ISPs complied and the Lawyers [Davenport Lyons] commenced the enormous task of writing to over (so we understand) 25,000 potential infringers.

However it was only when responses started to flood in – many in their hundreds to Lawdit Solicitors – did it become clear that while IP addresses could reveal a name and real-life address, it did not reveal the culprit. It proved very little. It certainly did not prove that any copyright infringement had taken place, far from it. Only by inspecting the hard drive of the customer’s computer could you do this. If there were any other evidence to sit alongside the IP address, for example a user name or password of the file sharing software you could sympathize with the rights holder.

But to rely on the IP address alone is wholly disproportionate and has resulted in untold misery to many thousands of individuals. This whole affair sums up in my view how little the Information Commissioner (IC) is really concerned with an individual’s data. I am not aware of any publicly quoted concerns from the IC about this issue and he has remained silent as the forums and bulletin boards crackle with the indignation and invasion of individual’s data. You cannot blame the ISPs. As a Court Order was in place, why would an ISP go out on a limb for a few thousand customers?

But the IC ought to have been keeping a watchful eye out and at the very least issue a press release to offer individuals some comfort. The silence is even more deafening in that on 29 January 2008, the ECJ held that Community law does not require member states to oblige ISPs to disclose details of suspected file-sharers to enable a copyright owner to bring civil proceedings.

Personal data is protected generally in the EU by virtue of the EC Directive on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data (95/46/EC) (Data Protection Directive). Member states may provide exemptions to protection in order to conduct criminal investigations or safeguard national or public security or to protect the rights and freedom of others (Article 13(1), Data Protection Directive).

In the UK such an exception can be found under section 35 (1) of the Data Protection Act 1998 which provides that ‘Personal data are exempt from the non-disclosure provisions where the disclosure is required by or under any enactment, by any rule of law or by the order of a court.’ This exemption does not contain any further considerations for a Data Controller before making a disclosure in these circumstances.

The EC Directive on the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector (2002/58/EC) (E-Privacy Directive) provides that national authorities may only lift the protection of data privacy in order to safeguard national or public security or to conduct investigations into criminal offences or the unauthorised use of an electronic communications system, where this is a “necessary, appropriate and proportionate measure” (Article 15(1), E-Privacy Directive).

The ECJ reached its conclusion(.pdf) following a Spanish case concerning Telefonica. The Juzgado de lo Mercantil No 5 de Madrid decided to stay the proceedings and referred the following question to the Court for a preliminary ruling:

Does Community law, specifically Articles 15(2) and 18 of Directive [2000/31], Article 8(1) and (2) of Directive [2001/29], Article 8 of Directive [2004/48] and Articles 17(2) and 47 of the Charter permit Member States to limit to the context of a criminal investigation or to safeguard public security and national defence, thus excluding civil proceedings, the duty of operators of electronic communications networks and services, providers of access to telecommunications networks and providers of data storage services to retain and make available connection and traffic data generated by the communications established during the supply of an information society service?

The ECJ, responded that the answer must be that Directives 2000/31, 2001/29, 2004/48 and 2002/58 do not oblige Member States to ensure effective protection of copyright in the context of civil proceedings to communicate personal data. A fair balance needs to be struck between the various fundamental rights and in particular the principle of proportionality. In Advocate General Kokott’s opinion she considered that it was compatible with Community law for member states to exclude operators of electronic communications networks and services from having to make available personal data relating to connection and traffic information in the context of a civil, as distinct from criminal, action.

While the decision is not binding on the ECJ it will generally follow the Advocate General’s opinion. For the vast majority if not all of the 25,000 recipients, this decision ought to have been interpreted as a request for information relating to a non criminal offence (i.e. any copying/file-sharing was non-commercial) and the request for the personal data ought to have been refused.

If you have received a letter accusing you of illicit file-sharing and you are innocent then please write to the Information Commissioner with your story and complain that the release of your personal data was a breach of the Data Protection Act 1998, while urging them to carry out a review of all subsequent releases.

The Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

For your convenience, a TorrentFreak reader Penumbra has created this template in order to streamline the complaints procedure: (Link)

Update: You may petition the government online by following this link.

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

Of course, the Pirate Bay team didn’t agree, and responded in true Pirate Bay style. “We’re quite used to fascist countries not allowing freedom of speech. A lot of smaller nations that have dictators decide to block our site since we can help spread information that could be harmful to the dictators,” Sunde wrote in a blog entry.

The BitTorrent tracker was not going down without a fight, and later announced that it would appeal the decision in court, which they won. The block was lifted and ISPs could again grant their users access to the most frequently used BitTorrent tracker on the Internet.

The Court of Bergamo decided that this block was unlawful, and earlier this week they explained why. According to the court statement (Italian), no criminal court is allowed to issue an order to ISPs to block traffic to a foreign website, based on alleged copyright infringement. Italian law implements an European Directive, 2000/31 CE, which this means that this ruling should be valid in other European countries as well.

“Under Italian law, this is possible only for child porn and for unauthorized gambling, but there is no such provision for copyright infringement,” Pirate Bay’s lawyers Giovanni Battista Gallus and Francesco Micozzi explained to TorrentFreak.

“We have to make sure that no legislative bill promoting such filtering provisions will be passed in the future. At the European level, many authorities pointed out the need to find a balance between the enforcement of alleged copyright infringements, users’ rights, and privacy issues.”

In hindsight, the block only helped the Pirate Bay to grow even further. The case generated a lot of free promotion, and the number of visitors from Italy increased by 5 percent. Not exactly the outcome IFPI had hoped for.

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

TorrentFreak heard that Indiana had a message for The Pirate Bay, the BitTorrent community and file-sharers in general, so we caught up with her to find out exactly what. She told us that although she agrees with the concept of file sharing, she believes that musicians and writers need to make a living or at least enough money to enable them to re-invest into their creation. She also gave us her opinions about how file-sharing will be ‘policed’ in the future and notes that the methods may not be 100% fair. “With all forms of change, there are always the up-sides and down-sides,” she told us.

It’s not very often an artist will speak as openly or at such length on this subject as Indiana has. Some people are going to like what she has to say. Thousands, maybe millions are going to hate it, but there isn’t a debate when only one side speaks – so here it is – uncensored, controversial, outrageous and thought provoking.

Something tells us this debate is far from over…..

I felt misrepresented in the first article and obviously, my attempt at humor by stating I’m a ‘millionaire’ wasn’t appropriately quantified. Am I a millionaire because I have millions of ants in my garden? Is it because I have had millions of people listen to my music on sites like MySpace or YouTube? Is it because I’m grateful to be healthy? How people quantify ‘richness’ in their lives depends on how people perceive value. And, yes, I’m guilty of fueling Peter Sunde’s fire and animosity. I can image it’s not easy in his position just now considering the amount of angry artistic people who are fronting against his cause. I’m sure he has his core values that he wants to defend… I have mine… and I’m not afraid to speak about them… for the sake of music.. and the common good.

The Pirate Bay: The Sinking Ship…..My Response

The Wild West of the Internet seems to be getting seriously out of hand and i’ve been wondering if and when the Internet Police will come and sort it all out. I mean… this is the new Wild West…

We’ve all heard and read every form of complaint about the Internet. From cyber-bullying, to child pornography sites, to copyright theft in the form of ‘file-sharing’.

Imagine….What if the Internet had ‘frontiers’. Why can we go all over the world on the Internet without a passport? Why are cybernauts allowed to steal goods from the store ’shelves’ and ’shop windows’ and justify it as ’sharing’? Since the birth of the Internet, people have been hacking software, stealing music, books, films, television shows, credit card numbers, eBay accounts, IP addresses… you name it, if it’s out there and can be downloaded, it’s being virtually stolen from under your nose.

So, why is this Wild West so hard to monitor? Why are people up in arms and waiving their guns wildly… … Are these new pirate ships sharing other people’s goods for gold? Of course they are… yes, I’m speaking about the torrent sites… and all the other sites who are making money on other people’s back…

Is the Internet really that much ‘bigger’ than the ‘real’ world? I think not. I believe that in the near future, we will all be using our Internet passports. If the government can do it in the real world, what’s stopping them from monitoring this new ‘Wild West’ phenomenon of the Internet in every town, city, state and country. I mean… Don’t we have just as much right as citizens to be protected on the Internet as we would be anywhere else? And really, the only people who would disagree with this idea are people who either are engaging in illegal activity or people who claim ‘civil liberty and freedom of speech’ on the Internet, but remember guys, those freedoms are only good until you begin to harm other people.

You don’t have freedom to shout from the rooftops at 3am outside your neighbor’s house…. and it’s certainly not your civil right to steal from your local baker and share his cream puffs outside his shop window…either, is it? Allow me to explain.

Let’s take one of the major forces on the Internet for example. Let’s look at all of the big music content sites (such as MySpace, Yahoo Music, etc) who seem to be huge driving swarms of traffic on the Internet. When you see the amount of advertisements per page and click, you know you can almost hear the ‘kerching’. These sites are like interstate junctions at rush hour (24 hours a day) so to speak. Torrents are no different…. Kerching kerching… They are giving away things like films, music, tv programs, software…. If it can be downloaded, it can be found… for free…

Thousands upon thousands of websites, sharing sites, and torrent sites exist. These websites are making a constant steady flow of income by using other people’s goods…they are pointing people to the goods (music) for free and selling masses of advertisement because people come to ‘leech’ the goods…these sites are basically allowing people to steal and destroy the music industry (which is in fact like shooting themselves in their own foot). The sites themselves claim to be ‘legal’. It is the user’s responsibility not to share copyrighted files.

So, you’d be silly to think that the Internet police are not planning on coming. How easy would it be to simply find all these people who are illegally ’sharing’ and slap a lawsuit on them. They can do that with a virtual push of a button. How hard do you think it will be for the ISP’s to hand over your Internet passport over to the new frontier police? They can see how much you’ve ’shared’ and potentially fine every single torrent user. I bet the torrent sites wouldn’t like that very much. Suddenly all their users would disappear.

Last year, in an article on Sky News, I read that a woman received a massive fine for file sharing on the KaZaA network. I thought, great! The police are coming.Then my husband sent me a link to another article titled “Should You Pay For Music?” I instantly thought….eh? Has the world gone mad? It’s like saying “Should you pay for petrol?” or “Should you pay for bread?” Hey, maybe I was being too ‘traditional’? I guess you could compare it to you, yourself, working all week long. You go to the bank and cash your check, and the banker takes your money without putting it into your account.

But, it’s much deeper than this. Whether or not the public is offered music for free or at a cost is not the real issue. The real problem lies in the fact that ’share’ sites are making money by pointing to other people’s copyrighted content… The end user gets it for free… the torrents make money…. And the musicians and artists?? Well, they get to live off of ‘fresh air’. Put simply, musicians will not be able to exist financially in order to create music if income streams are cut off (whether or not a record label comes to play).

And this is exactly what is happening.

As a musician and an independent record-label, I see my livelihood being sucked away every day through file-sharing and torrent sites which are allowing copyright material to flow in and out of their sites. All they have to do is claim that it’s the responsibility of the user to make sure the content they are sharing is not copyright protected material. Last year, in a period of two weeks, we tracked and found over 100,000 leechers of my album alone. Since then, we’ve found about 150,000 more, of which I, the artist, who put my heart and soul, time and sweat into an album and raising money to market that album, haven’t received a dime, not one red cent. Full torrent files of a complete album! Since it’s so easy to ’share’ the music….

In the real world, if everyone walked into HMV and took as many albums as they like… and said they were ’sharing’…errr… shoplifting? I really don’t see how people think they can give music or any other form of media for ‘free’ without it hurting the livelihoods of musicians. Sharing of copyright protected material is 100% illegal. However, since it’s not being regulated, it’s as if all of us musicians have just left the shop door open so that anybody can lift our guitars and gear out on the street and drive off with it. Isn’t that what’s happening? If you can’t make a dime from that album you just spent all your money, time and effort on because everyone is ’sharing’ it, then how are you going to buy your guitar strings, pay your landlord, or eat? You’ll be selling your gear soon and asking the boss for overtime. Right?

Torrent sites are claiming that they are creating ‘free promotion’ for musicians…. that’s right.. they claim that by giving all these people the opportunity to “share” the music, they are doing all of us musicians a big huge favor. In fact, they think that musician’s, songwriters, sound engineers, mastering companies, etc… should all live on ‘pure fresh air’. They blatantly state that they think it should be enough for a musician to make music out of their ‘passion’ for music… and well, since it’s ‘art’ it shouldn’t have a price….. er, ok….. maybe we should go and see if Fender will start giving away free guitars? Free gear for everybody!!! Yipppeee…. Free strings, free amplifiers, free microphones and drum kits……awww… how novel.

Here’s another funny one…the torrent site’s answer to how musicians are supposed to earn a living is: .. well, musician’s will just need to go out and gig some more in order to make a living. Maybe the band can sell a few more T-shirts, etc. etc. They rationalize stealing by stating that they go to gigs and buy tickets…(or that they plan to do so if ever their favorite band can finally afford to come and do a tour in their country). They claim that by allowing sharing, they are ‘leveling the playing field’.

Well, torrent sites are absolutely NOT leveling the playing field. They are just moving the field and reaping the benefits due to a temporary loophole in the law. I’ll bet that when all their users get slapped a fine for ’sharing’ in their respective countries the torrent sites won’t be there to support them. I doubt that they are planning to send all their users a bunch of ‘gold’ off of their pirate ship. So far, there have only been a few ‘examples’ made with users being slapped heavy fines. I have a hunch that this will CHANGE.

Aww, now there’s a word “CHANGE”.

Well, let’s talk about CHANGE for a moment. The torrent people even go as far as to quote Charles Darwin in an effort to justify theft:

“In nature, it’s not the strongest nor the most intelligent who survives. It’s the most adaptable to change.” (a quote from a torrent fanatic referring to Darwins theory).

Hmmm………..well, I assume that the torrent sites are planning to be adaptable pretty soon then, considering the number of pending lawsuits from pretty strong and intelligent companies who have not only proven their adaptability to change, but have changed the world as we know it (companies like Microsoft, for example).

Please.. spare us this kind of rhetoric guys. With the likes of Microsoft, Prince, and the IFPI going after you, any outsider might begin to wonder when YOU plan to adapt to ‘change’. It’s becoming evident that your business model is a sinking ship. Pretty soon, your users will be slapped with fines and more big companies will be slapping on lawsuits. Why not just sink your ship yourselves..eh? That’s really what you’re doing.. Your resistance to ‘change’ is in complete conflict with your very survival… Oh the irony. “Let’s have all our users quote Darwin”.

“Sharing is caring”, so they say. Torrent sites are promoting the idea that if people are taking the time to ’share’ other peoples copyright material it means they care. So, what’s stopping the torrent pirates from ’sharing’ the revenue from the advertising on their sites? Funny how it’s ok for musicians to live off of ‘fresh air’ but these pirates are meanwhile filling their boat with loot on the backs of other people’s hard work. Let’s see how adaptable to ‘change’ they decide to become… and put their Darwin theory where their mouth is….

Free promotion? Basically, torrents are promoting music that has ‘already been promoted’, so it’s not ‘free promotion’. There will be a small percentage of people who go through the millions of songs that are being seeded and perhaps discover something new because they searched for something they had already heard about. So, torrents are not only ‘moving’ the playing field, they are, in reality, making the playing field so un-even that bands are going to be the new “Sysiphus’s” trying to roll a ball uphill for eternity – although the sites would like to fool us all into believing otherwise.

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

When asked about the purpose of the memo in 2006, party spokesperson Peter Eriksson said: “Our aim is to make laws in line with the new technologies. The other option is to pretend that you can go on like you always have, although it’s practically impossible. Reality has changed.”

One of the driving forces behind the recent “I Wouldn’t Steal” campaign from the European Green parties was the Swedish politician Carl Schlyter, and his initiative seems to have spurred others in the party to join the debate. Earlier this week, an editorial was published in two local Swedish newspapers. It was titled “Filesharing is not theft” and was written by Akko Karlsson, member of the Swedish Green Party’s executive board.

In the editorial, Akko argued that filesharing can’t be compared to theft, as theft is when someone takes away the possibility for another person to use something, whereas filesharing only creates a new copy without erasing the original.

“For me, this is a generation issue,” said Akko Karlsson when TorrentFreak asked her why she decided to write the editorial. “You should always endorse the new technologies’ possibilities.”

In her editorial, Akko criticizes the entertainment industry’s failing to enter the information age with working business models:

“You could argue that filesharing hinders some people from earning as much money as they would have if filesharing was not possible. But now it is possible, the technology is there, and then the industry needs to find new ways of handling it. They’ve had the chance to work on new ways for 10 years but haven’t come up with much else than silly trailers that say filesharing is theft. [...] When new technology emerges, it’s not necessarily it that must be adapted to the old ways. Sometimes, the industry itself must adapt.”

Akko further told TorrentFreak that she’s convinced that filesharing, copyright and integrity will be important issues for Green Party in the 2009 elections for the European Parliament and the 2010 elections in Sweden.

“Because there is also the democratic aspect of this,” she says, “There are so many people under repressive regimes for whom filesharing and the Internet is the link to the rest of the world that inspires, gives hope and makes it endurable to fight for human rights and democracy. The state’s control system is expanding. We used to heavily criticize the intrusions of privacy and control systems in place behind the Iron Curtain, but now we are building this ourselves.”

In Swedish old media, there’s currently a heated argument against filesharing, with novelists like Liza Marklund and Jan Guillou using every inch of their weekly columns in Swedish newspapers to lobby for tougher measures. With the trial against The Pirate Bay coming up, the debate has sunk even deeper in the trenches. In this climate, for politicians to step up to the plate with sound arguments why filesharing should be legalized seems like a bold move.

But Akko Karlsson is not alone.

On January 31, an editorial was published in Gothenburg’s daily newspaper. It was written by Green Party’s Lage Rahm, member of Parliament, party spokesperson on IT issues and substitute member on The Committee on Industry and Trade. On the subject of the ongoing case against The Pirate Bay, he called for reason when it comes to impose tougher measures on filesharing:

“Not only is the struggle [to end illegal filesharing] doomed to fail, it also creates a risk that filesharing on the Internet becomes anonymized and encrypted. An increased availability of untraceable networks will make it harder to fight organized crime.”

As an example, Lage Rahm put forward the bust of a pedophile ring with more than 700 suspects in 33 countries last year. This was done by tracking chatrooms, downloaded photos and e-mail.

“Most people realize that the police and copyright interest groups are fighting against windmills. [...] Convicting sentences against The Pirate Bay would have merely marginal effects on the scope of illegal filesharing. More severe is that the hunt will lead to an increased interest for absolute anonymity among Sweden’s approximately 1 million filesharers. Their activity will move to untraceable darknets.”

He focused on the dangers of Internet communities going underground and concluded:

“New technologies mean we as legislators are faced with an entirely new reality. Tougher measures against filesharing means risking the police’s possibilities of fighting child pornography and organized crime. It is worrying that the Minister of Justice doesn’t seem to realize this. For The Green Party, this is one of the main arguments of legalizing non-commercial downloading. [...] The Minister of Justice should leave to the industry to clear up the mess they have made for themselves. Judicial resources should be diverted to fight severe online criminality instead of hunting filesharing sixteen-year-olds.”

So, what does this all mean for the European filesharer? Well, one thing is sure, political parties that actually have power are taking a pro-filesharing stance. A sign that things are moving forward, slowly, but in the right direction.

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

TF: What exactly does the political leader of the German Pirate Party do?

JH: The most important point is to coordinate the political development of the pirate party. This implies motivating discussions about current and new stances as well as writing press releases. It also includes being active as a spokesman of the party, but of course here I am not the only one.

TF: The party was officially registered as a party on September 10th 2006, correct?

JH: Yes, that is the day we founded it. The letters for registering it were sent a few days later, but that is not what counts in Germany.

TF: Approximately how many members do you have?

JH: A few minutes ago it have been 537 plus a handful pending, future members.

TF: What has been the party’s achievements over the past year?

JH: If ordered by how hard it was to achieve, then I am proud that we have federal parties in 6 federal states wich build local concentration points for pirates and interested persons.

Close to that came our funding in a number of NGOs and citizen right groups. When we started a year ago none of them took us serious. Today a lot of their members have become pirates, we organize demonstrations and press releases together and hold lectures on each others conferences.

Third to name of course is media attention. Besides the base attention of journalists discovering the pirates and their attitudes, there have been two popular events this year: the first was a trojan horse build of old computer crap with which we “infected” the ministry of interior to demonstrate against hidden intrusion to computer systems. The second is the “Killerchess”, a bloody chess game with human pawns, to show the idiocy of a law which proposed forbidden all kind of violence in computer games.

TF: Are there any current activities for the party?

JH: A smaller one: a local internet provider named Arcor has – without any good reason – decided to ban certain pornographic sites. Tomorrow we will not only discredit this behaviour but also launch a website to circumvent this filter. A bigger one is the festival of forbidden art, we copy an artists installation of a spam shredder (computer, printer and shredder in a line to immediately destroy all incoming e-mails) and modify it, to download illegal videos from YouTube, burn them, display on a big screen and then destroy the CDs on which we burned them. The illegal video will be mesh art, to demonstrate the power of recycling knowledge and the absurdity of claiming property in ideas. The act will be surround by a Creative Commons band. Of course we also do more traditional political work by commenting current political and social movements. Currently we are working with other European Pirate Parties in dealing with European Justice and Security Ministers demand to block dangerous words like “Bomb” and “Genocide” from being searched.

TF: When is the next election in Germany?

JH: The next regional election is in January 2008, the election for our federal as well as the European parliament is in 2009 as well as the most regional elections.

TF: Do you have anyone running for election then?

JH: Yes of course. At the moment we plan to take part in every national and regional election. We have to collect signatures for that case and in some cases this might stop us. But where active pirates are the signatures are no problem. The most promising federal party is the one of Hesse, with Thorsten Wirth as chairman, but we will take part in the election as the Piratenpartei, not reduced to a single person – this is a flavour of German election laws. Hesse is also one of the two federal states which have elections next January.

TF: What do you feel are the chances of election?

JH: Anything above 1% will be a success in the first election. It will help as in further election, because it is a promise for our voters, that their next ballot is not wasted. If we get such a result once, it will boost our results on the following elections. Especially in Hesse we have a good chance of getting such a result, because the current government has made several unpopular decisions before election like forcing study fees and reintroducing biblical stories into biology. Also Hesse is one of the most active regions for pirates. I think they will made the percent and this will be a land rush for the pirates in Germany.

TF: 1% would make it the best result internationally for any Pirate Party. how many votes (if you know) would that mean?

JH: 60,000

TF: We have talked before with representatives of the US Pirate Party and they do not encourage copyright infringement, does the German party have that position as well?

JH: We would prefer not to encourage breaking the law. But the German copyright law is so incompatible with the freedom of speech and daily use of computer and internet that it is almost impossible not to infringe copyright. We therefore see civil disobedience in the copyright issue as a valid form a protesting against it. We recommend to make use of ones natural right of free flow of information, we also help people to get the technology for sharing and resting against censorship. This advice finds its limitation when it comes to earn money from others work. We do not support that.

TF: Finally, where do you see things being, globally, in a years time?

JH: I expect big progress into surveillance state in Europe but also a larger debate about the fear of terrorism and the dangers of a police state. This will give the pirate parties an even bigger boost, as current oppositions are failing their task of correcting governments heading. I do not expect big movements about the copyright laws, but a change of their environment. There are chances that the John Doe cases against filesharers will loose their power as acceptance of screen-shots as proofs as well as revealing names behind IP addresses will be denied by judges. A lot will happen in the field of open access (and related with that patents) when it comes to public funding – which matters for the majority of scientific results. I expect an increase of open access publications and a broad discussion among scientist, who wake up and find out that they have more pull. And finally I expect that the number of pirate parties will be lower than today, but the number of pirate party members increase a lot. This because the incentive to run a party alone in a country is low and the initial hype to found one is over. But once a critical mass is reached the parties growth will make oneself independent. Additionally the Pirate Parties goals are getting more important every day they are not in parliament as the movement towards the information society can not be stopped any more. Only its shape can still be formed.

The German Pirate Party’s site is here

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