James Burt, a 24 year-old manager at games retailer Electronics Boutique, admitted uploading the game on November 6th, a week before its commercial release in Australia.

In a statement the Japanese games giant said it used a range of forensic techniques to track down the uploader and on 23rd November obtained a Federal Court search order. This was used to locate and seize items from Burt’s property in Sinnamon Park, Queensland, to be used in evidence in the case against him.

As part of the investigation, Burt was also ordered to allow access using his passwords to social networking sites, email accounts and other websites he had used.

Australia traditionally lags behind the United States and Japan when it comes to media releases, but with the release of New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii the reverse was true, leading Nintendo to refer to the leak as a “global issue”.

“This legal proceeding was commenced to protect the creative rights and innovation of game developers, and to combat the growing international problem of Internet piracy,” the company said in a statement.

The game was a sure fire hit on BitTorrent. Data collected by TorrentFreak indicated that by December 27th 2009, the game had been downloaded 1,150,000 times.

Nevertheless, the game was still a huge commercial success. The game sold in excess of 10 million units in its first 2 months on sale – that’s 1 in 6 of all Wii gamers buying a copy – making it the fastest-selling single-platform game ever.

It’s unclear how Mr Burt will be able to pay this huge amount in damages. His salary at Electronics Boutique is unlikely to cover it – if he still has a job there.

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

As with most DRM, Ubisoft’s new anti-piracy solution needlessly hurts legitimate customers. Pirates will always find a way around the access restrictions and will be able to play the game offline without running into trouble. Because of this, Ubisoft’s plans were welcomed with skepticism among fellow game developers.

Gaming magazine Develop has asked several gaming industry figures what they think about Ubisoft’s new DRM. While some are against it and others showed support, the overall sentiment is that DRM itself is not going to stop piracy.

Gusto Games’ Luke Maskell is the most outspoken of them all. “I’m firmly against Ubisoft’s announcement, I think it’s a huge violation of privacy and is only punishing the legitimate customer; the pirates won’t have to worry about being online as they’ll find a way around pretty sharpish,” he commented.

Maskell was not the only one with reservations though. Adrian Hirst, Managing Director at Weaseltron, also stressed that the danger of DRM is that the pirated copy turns into a more desirable product than the retail version.

“Previous draconian attempts at copy protection have only served to outrage our very customers. Copy protection that makes the cracked copy of the game more appealing to the customer than the genuine one threatens to turn them away from purchasing at all,” he said.

Most of the other gaming insiders that were interviewed agreed with this assessment. DRM will only hurt the game if legitimate customers have to face more restrictions than those who choose to download a copy illegally.

“I don’t believe that online DRM on it’s own will ever stop piracy – your game will simply have that functionality stripped out by various hacking groups,” Ben Ward of Bizarre Creations said. “The only way that DRM will be accepted by consumers is if it is delivered inside a service which brings tangible, real-world benefits with it.”

Others were less outspoken against Ubisoft’s new DRM but everyone noted that it will be counter-effective if it’s too obtrusive or cumbersome. To us at TorrentFreak, these different opinions clearly suggest that for a long time the digital entertainment industry has chosen the wrong path to counter piracy.

Instead of trying to add more restrictions to the products they sell to customers, they should add in extra features for those who pay for the product. UbiSoft actually made it half way already by adding several advantages for players who play online, but they’re not quite there yet.

Logged in customers who play Ubisoft’s new games online will be able to save it remotely, so they can continue playing the game on other PCs. Continuing along these lines the company could easily include other benefits and extra features for online players. If they then drop the requirement to play online, they might actually have a superior product compared to the pirated version.

In the end it’s all about finding a way to frame or sell DRM as an advantage instead of a restriction.

The music streaming application Spotify is a great example of how ‘DRM’ can be an advantage. Spotify users can only access music when they’re logged in, which is the ultimate DRM. Still, no one has even brought this issue up because the service offers so many advantages over most other legitimate and illegitimate ways of enjoying music.

If those in the gaming and other digital entertainment industries start thinking in terms of adding benefits for paying customers instead of useless restrictions to keep pirates out, they would have a lot more satisfied customers. Perhaps even more importantly, they could sell a lot more products.

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

The game is scheduled to be sold in stores starting Tuesday in North America and Friday throughout Europe, but many curious customers couldn’t wait until then and have downloaded an unauthorized copy instead.

At the time of writing, tens of thousands of people are downloading the game, which is more than 14 gigabytes worth of data for the PC version and over 13 gigabytes for the Xbox360 version. According to the latest statistics gathered by TorrentFreak, more than 300,000 people started downloading the files in the past days.

All purchased copies of Mass Effect 2, developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts, will come with a ‘Cerberus’ Network Card. The card is required to download in-game items and new missions that will become available when the game is officially released, but it’s possible to play the game just fine without it.

According to reports from many downloaders, the game lives up to its expectations. Hundreds of people have reported their successful completion of the game already, in playing times ranging from 10 hours to well over 30 hours.

Although the ‘Cerberus’ Network Card might not prevent people from grabbing an early copy of the game on BitTorrent, it might help to convert illegal downloaders who like the game into buying customers, if it’s not hacked or cracked itself.

Whether Mass Effect 2 will come close to the massive popularity of Modern Warfare 2 among BitTorrent users is doubtful, but the game will certainly make an appearance in the 2010 most pirated games list later this year.

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

He rose to fame in the wider BitTorrent community when in early 2008 a Danish court ordered the ISP Tele2 to block its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay.

In response, the Pirate Bay team created a site in his name, TheJesperBay, which contained information and code allowing Tele2 users to evade the block.

Not only did Bay have a site named after him, Copenhagen’s ‘Pirate Cinema‘ even briefly changed their name in his honor.

But after many cat and mouse games with his opponents, Jesper Bay has just announced he will quit as IFPI Denmark’s director and spokesman at the end of January.

“I’ve been here six and a half years and think that maybe it’s time to try something else,” he told Computerworld.

Although Bay’s job has been very demanding with an understandably high workload and lots of pressure, he says that’s not the reason for his departure – he just feels he’s been in the position long enough. Bay admits that at times, things have been tough.

“Sometimes it may have been frustrating to be in a role where you know you have right on your side, but it is very difficult to penetrate with the message, because there are so many other interests at stake in the ongoing debate,” he conceded.

Bay went on to criticize the media’s coverage of the battle between online pirates and the recording industry.

“We are continuing to experience relatively sensible people at relatively reasonable media outlets, writing completely what suits them. And very often very poorly researched,” he said.

Noting that the issue of piracy and copyright is a hot one at the moment, largely due to the fact that there is so much at stake for the many parties involved, he accepts that while the industry has not won the war, they have won several battles.

Conceding in late 2008 that Denmark would not see the introduction of “3 strikes” for music file-sharers must have been one of the more bitter pills to swallow.

Bay explained that part of his job has been to refine the debate surrounding these issues, and extend it beyond combating piracy to include discussion of new business models and the way forward in a digital world.

But despite his upcoming departure, Bay says he has nothing lined up and will just take some time off to assess his future. He insists, however, that he has not received a better offer of employment from the pirates.

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.

In five days the game’s worldwide sales climbed to $550 million, crushing previous record holders Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (only $394m) and The Dark Knight (just $203.8m).

“In just five days of sell through Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has become the largest entertainment launch in history and a pop culture phenomenon,” Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said commenting on the game’s success. This is, of course, reflected in the number of pirated copies being traded on BitTorrent.

With 4.1 million unauthorized downloads of the PC version alone, the game more than doubles the achievement of last year’s ‘winner‘ Spore. Modern Warfare 2 leads both the PC and Xbox 360 lists, by a landslide.

The overall trend across all platforms is that, unlike last year, all of the games are 2009 releases. What makes Modern Warfare 2’s chart-topping even more impressive is that this has been achieved after just two months of availability. We further see that the figures for the most downloaded titles have more than doubled compared to last year, equaling the growth in uTorrent users.

PC games are by far the most downloaded titles, with on average more than three times the number of downloads compared to Xbox 360 and Wii releases. As expected, Mario titles are in high demand on the Wii.

The data for these lists is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including reports from all public BitTorrent trackers. All the data is carefully checked and possible inaccuracies are systematically corrected.

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.

DL then wrote to the individuals demanding several hundred pounds to make the threat of a lawsuit disappear. Some paid up, but many did not, and the only cases DL took to court were against those who didn’t defend themselves.

Generating revenue from porn proves controversial

Then the law firm overplayed its hand and got into bed with DigiProtect, the German piracy exploitation outfit with a catalog of hardcore porn titles to its name. The rights were signed over to the company by the copyright holders so that DigiProtect could use them to generate revenue – lots and lots of revenue.

After mountains of bad publicity, DL withdrew from this business model. In May this year, the exact same scheme reappeared with UK lawyers ACS:Law. TorrentFreak asked company owner Andrew Crossley about the connections between ACS and DL – his reply: “NONE”. However, it was crystal clear that there were many links, not least that staff from DL were now working at ACS:Law directly on these cases – known cyber-squatter Terence Tsang as one example.

We’ve known all along that if those threatened put up a spirited defense and refused to be cowed they were never taken to court, but we had no proof as to the mechanism employed. Then, out of nowhere, months ago someone from inside either Davenport Lyons or DigiProtect leaked lots of sensitive documents to German news outlet Gulli.

Having remained secret until now, the documents made very interesting reading and along with a helping hand from TorrentFreak and armed with the leaked personal details and email addresses of some of the letter recipients, Firebird77 at Gulli was able to confirm the authenticity of the documents.

Document 1 – Ranking alleged infringers in order to decide who to pursue

The first document reveals how the targets are ranked based on an estimation of how likely it is that they will pay up. Each alleged infringer has their details filled in on a form (download here from WikiLeaks). The document shows that despite the claims that an IP address alone is irrefutable evidence of an infringement and will lead to being taken to court, the reality is rather different.

Letter recipients are given a ranking based on many parameters. Does the law firm want to continue to pursue the person? What are the chances of success? A zero would mean “no action” up to ten which would mean the respondent is ripe for maximum pressure. One letter recipient hired Michael Coyle at Lawdit Solicitors to defend him and this earned him a “three”.

One part of the form is entitled “Circumstances” and this is a very surprising section indeed. Despite the “fact” that the law firms supposedly already have solid evidence of infringement that they say will lead to court action if recipients don’t comply, the section seems to show that they make their decisions on who to pursue based on the recipients’ personal circumstances.

One circumstance is labeled “impecuniosity”, i.e the letter recipient is flat broke. Another is whether the recipient is on state benefits – this is expected to be proven by way of copies of benefit books and/or letters. TorrentFreak has evidence that one gentleman was asked to prove that he was indeed disabled in order to make the claims go away. Other circumstances include whether the recipient is a pensioner, a student or a child.

One other circumstance is an eyebrow-raising “out of jurisdiction” (no rightful claim could be made the against the recipient) along with whether or not the individual was aware of that fact.

The form also lists possible defenses that recipients rely on, including the breach of their wireless router, a virus infected PC, not being at home when the infringement occurred, no knowledge of infringement or the possibility that someone else in the location carried out the infringement.

Document 2 – Letter from lawyer Dr Kornmeier from Kornmeier & Partner to Brian Miller at Davenport Lyons

The 14 page document (download from WikiLeaks) details the agreement DigiProtect enters into with rights holders in order to exploit their copyrights for profit.

Included is a section which confirms that the original rights holders sign over the rights to DigiProtect so that they are legally allowed to make the works (hardcore porn movies) publicly available on P2P networks such as BitTorrent. Dr Kornmeier asks: “Does this constitute any problem under UK law?”

According to page 2 of the letter, when the recipient of these letters pay up, the spoils are divided up as follows – 51% to DigiProtect, 37.5% to Davenport Lyons and 11% to DigiRights Solutions. The remaining pages detail the exact business arrangement along with a list of the hundreds of porn movies covered by the agreement.

TorrentFreak discussed the documents with staff at the excellent BeingThreatened.com, a site set up to support and inform those targeted by Davenport Lyons and ACS:Law in the UK.

“These documents confirm what we have long suspected,” they told us. “This scheme is not about getting justice for the rightsholders at all; it is there to fill the pockets of companies like DigiProtect by exploiting many innocent people. Everyone with an IP address has reason to be worried about becoming a victim of these exploitative practices, whether they use P2P networks or not.”

Indeed, John Stagliano, boss of porn company Evil Angel which also worked with DigiProtect, admitted to earning less than £50 from each infringement and told the BBC the scheme “…was completely misrepresented” to him.

Uk consumer magazine Which? earlier reported Davenport Lyons to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority for alleged “bullying”. It will be interesting to see how these documents develop that case.

Thus far just two documents have been made public. Stay tuned for further updates.

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

“Piracy is here, so how can we take advantage of that? What we did actually, on day one, we put that game immediately on all the torrent networks ourselves,” RedLynx CEO Tero Virtala, told a panel discussion at the Develop game conference.

The company didn’t upload the full game, but a slightly altered version which excluded the leaderboards that are required to play against other users on the Internet, hoping that it would convert some ‘pirates’ into paying customers.

“That game relies really heavily on the server side – the leaderboards are the soul of the game,” Virtala said. “I don’t know if it’s helped, I’d assume so because even though the version that we put on the torrent networks wasn’t the full version, it’s the version of the game without the actual soul, without the leaderboards to play against other players,” Virtala said.

Unfortunately the company has no way of knowing whether the free marketing on torrent sites has paid off. Thus far RedLynx has sold almost 150,000 copies of the game, but unlike the CEO claims, it is also available on torrent sites in a version where the leaderboard functionality is hacked.

It is good to see that companies are recognizing that giving away games on torrent sites can actually help to market their products. Making demo versions of a game available to the public is not necessarily a novelty, but uploading these onto torrent sites is an opportunity that only a few have taken advantage of.

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

What’s most interesting about the site is that its users can also browse torrents based on an actor or director, a feature that other torrent sites lack. With just a single click users can list all the films where Patrick Swayze made an appearance, or all the films directed by Quentin Tarantino.

“The actors and directors can be added by the users when they upload a torrent file,” Files24 founder Oleg told TorrentFreak. “Also if we recognize the movie, we automatically check and fill in any missing data,” he added.

Although the site also lists music and games, thus far these advanced searches only work for movies. TV-shows are oddly enough listed in the movies section but Oleg told TorrentFreak that a TV and software section will be added in the near future.

The navigational structure and design of the site is not the only thing that’s unique to Files24 though. According to one of the site’s founders, Files24 also has a dedicated tracker that is optimized to facilitate the highest download speeds.

“We track which country users come from and the tracker then gives priority to peers from their own country. As a result users can download at much higher speeds,” Files24’s Oleg told TorrentFreak.

One of the downsides of the site is that users are only permitted to upload torrents with a Files24 tracker, so this may severely limit the number of torrents that will be added to the site. On the other hand this is also one of the upsides, since this will stop a great deal of spam and fake files from being uploaded.

Files24 went live yesterday and currently lists some 40,000 torrents. It is clear that the site is still work in progress but the new features the site has to offer will be welcomed by many BitTorrent users. Of course they will also be frowned upon by Hollywood. Nothing new there.

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

As anonymous investors pulled out and promises from the shareholders that they would come up with the funds themselves came to nothing, the deadline for the sale passed and the site stayed in the hands of Reservella, the Seychelles-based holding company that acquired The Pirate Bay two years ago.

But for those missing the optimistic press releases, bold statements and dramas of the attempted purchase by GGF, today brings good news.

According to a report, Reservella – with a helping hand from ex-Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde – are in fresh talks with four potential buyers.

While the identities of two of the parties remains unknown, hints have been dropped about the other pair.

The first, GamersGate, is a Swedish company specializing in online computer games. Its CEO Theodore Bergquist, however, is playing his cards close to his chest.

“We are looking at many potential deals,” Bergquist told Di. “All I can say is that The Pirate Bay is an interesting brand loaded with great potential for those who deal with it properly.”

Holding a B.A. degree from Stockholm University, Bergquist joined Paradox Entertainment in May 2001 as CEO and was responsible for overall strategy, financial performance and growth initiatives. In 2004 he acquired the Interactive division of Paradox Entertainment and in April 2006 he became CEO of GamersGate, which was initially Paradox’s digital distribution portal.

Bergquist reported earlier this year that GamersGate had achieved 100% growth in business during 2008, both in terms of revenue and in the amount of new customers and titles on the site. The company is aiming at achieving up to 200% more during 2009. Owning The Pirate Bay’s domain would certainly help them achieve that.

The second potential buyer is a rather more familiar name – the utterly resilient Hans Pandeya.

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

The next phase was to write to the individuals and threaten them with legal action, unless they paid several hundred pounds. Some panicked and paid up, most did not. Only a handful of these cases actually went to court and DL won them all, because the individuals didn’t defend themselves.

After masses of bad publicity peaking in a controversy over gay porn, Davenport Lyons appeared to have had enough, and withdrew from this business model to limit the damage to their brand and reputation.

In May, new kid on the block ACS:Law appeared and promptly took over where DL left off, and again, hundreds – maybe thousands – of threatening letters went out, demanding cash payment from alleged file-sharers. But this time things wouldn’t be quite so easy for the lawyers and their clients.

The scheme wasn’t new anymore and various support structures for letter recipients flourished, including forums and dedicated sites such as the excellent BeingThreatened.com. Due to the increased knowledge and awareness brought about through news articles such as those read here on TorrentFreak and on the aforementioned platforms, pay-up rates from those accused fell to as little as 15%, as it became clear that the chances of actually being taken to court were minimal.

But now, after months of being told to “put up or shut up”, it seems that ACS:Law are, if they are to be believed, about to flex their legal muscles and actually litigate against certain individuals. They need their symbolic “head on a pike” to ensure the overall pay up rates make the scheme worthwhile.

“The first batch [of] claims have been prepared and were filed at court on Friday, 4 September 2009. Service of the proceedings will be made by first class post and will be with defendants by Tuesday, 8 September 2009 at the very latest,” the company said in a statement, adding, “The second batch of defendants will be selected on Monday, 14 September 2009.”

While many recipients may have ignored previous correspondence from ACS:Law or DL, individuals receiving documents in the post today or tomorrow (presuming the threats actually come to something) are strongly advised not to ignore them, especially if they are court documents.

Failure to respond to court documents could result in a default judgment being issued in the future and this could prove very costly indeed – possibly mounting to several thousand pounds.

So what should recipients of court documents do? Firstly it would be prudent to seek legal advice – Lawdit Solicitors can offer advice and guidance since they have been assisting people against these claims for some time now, but any lawyer with a sound knowledge of copyright issues will prove invaluable.

For those individuals who maintain they are innocent, a vigorous defense can be mounted against any allegations. In the majority of cases, all ACS:Law will have as evidence is an IP address harvested by an untested system in a foreign country, and that may not be enough to prove their case.

Indeed, the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) recently told Which?, “We’re not convinced of the efficacy of the software and not confident in its ability to identify users.”

However, ACS:Law will select potential defendants very carefully and will likely focus on individuals with the weakest cases, have compromised or damaged their defense in some way, or have chosen not to respond to previous letters.

If you receive court documents in connection with an ACS:Law case during the next few days, do not panic. Please feel free to get in touch with us here at TorrentFreak in complete confidence. Your privacy will not be breached and we will point you in the right direction.

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

“The main difference that sets Hexagon.cc apart from other social file sharing and BitTorrent sites, is everything is centered around groups. Be it file sharing networks or flash video sites, a key piece we found missing is social context,” isoHunt’s founder Gary Fung said.

With Hexagon Fung hopes to bridge this gap by allowing people to start groups where they can share content within a certain niche. These groups help to organize content and allow people to share with others who are interested in the same material, privately or in public.

In addition Hexagon is also aimed at content producers and independent artists who want to promote their content using BitTorrent. For this group Hexagon offers monetization opportunities such as direct “fan” contributions and sharing of advertising revenue.

“We have contacts with game publishers and independent musicians and film makers, who are very interested in creating their own groups where they can directly market their music, videos or games and interact with their fans, and generate sales directly or indirectly,” Fung said.

Hexagon is certainly not your average torrent site and we must admit that it took us a while to fully grasp the new sharing interface. That aside, it is great to see that some people are still innovating and trying to improve the BitTorrent sharing experience.

The Hexagon team is offering 500 invites for TorrentFreak readers who want to give Hexagon a spin, so you can decide for yourself. Update, here are 3000 more invites. And 10.000 extra just in case…

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

The campaign carries a petition which hopes to force Norway’s political parties to show their intentions on unauthorized file-sharing.

“Legal file sharing is good. Illegal file sharing is theft,” begins a statement from the organizers, which goes on to say that just because everyone is doing it, it doesn’t mean to say that the practice should be legalized.

“Currently the systematic and organized piracy of digital media is carried out to the extent that the very existence of the basis for artists, composers, artists, filmmakers, writers and other rights holders are threatened,” it adds.

The organizers say that some political parties have proposed the “legalization of software piracy” by compensating the original creators through the budget or taxes, “rather than ensuring that Norwegian law is enforced” against infringers.

The organizers hope that the petition will force Norway’s political parties to become more open and clarify their stance on the issue of unauthorized file-sharing and copyright issues before the country’s elections this fall.

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

Meet Digiprotect, the pirate tracking company that earned its marks tracking down ‘adult’ pirates, but branched out to protecting the works of all sorts of copyright holders. Over the years the company has perfected its pirate tracking tactics to guarantee maximum profits.

Although most companies operating in the same realm try to fly under the radar as much as possible, Digiprotect’s account manager Thomas Hein is more vocal about their business strategies. In an interview he gave a while ago he explains how his company leases copyrights so they can trap potential downloaders.

“We get the legal rights from the companies to distribute these movies to stores, and with these rights we can sue illegal downloaders. Then we take legal action in every country possible, concentrating on the places where such action will be profitable,” Hein says.

So Digiprotect acquires the right to distribute movies, music or games from the rights holders, which they then share on various P2P networks. All they have to do is wait for people to take the bait. If someone tries to download the file they collect the IP-address and initiate legal action through one of their befriended law firms.

That is, if it’s profitable, otherwise Digiprotect can’t afford to protect the copyright holder’s rights, as Hein explains.

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

Indeed, it’s all about the money.

“Our success rate is high enough to make good money for everybody,” Hein says, “and it’s also high enough to deter people from stealing content in the future. But we have to be careful about the amount of damages we ask for.”

So how does one go about making ‘good money’? Apparently it’s not only important where you sue people, but also the amount of damages you claim.

“We try to find a figure that covers our costs and pays money to our licensors, which is usually around 500 Euro ($700). Other firms are going for huge amounts of money, and the judges don’t like it. If the judges feel you’re being greedy, they won’t rule in your favor.”

Yes, you’re reading it right. The damage figures are not based on any actual losses, they are carefully calculated to guarantee maximum profits for all parties, except the alleged pirate of course. We can’t help but wonder who the real thieves are here…

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

After being held in custody for a day, the 33 year old from Västerås was later released on charges of copyright infringement. During his interrogation he said that he had no knowledge of the movies, instead believing the server to contain only games.

The police who carried out the raid were acting on a tip from Sweden’s Anti-Piracy Bureau (Antipiratbyrån) who said they believe the man could be part of a larger network, probably within the notorious ‘warez scene’, although at this stage no other arrests have been made. Antipiratbyrån also says the server has links to another investigation carried out in Norway.

Antipiratbyrån lawyer Henrik Pontén is now claiming that the server contained around 10,000 movies totaling some 88 terabytes – a huge amount to be contained on a single server.

“We regard the man as one of the leaders in the warez scene,” said Pontén, adding, “A number of respected release groups were able to connect to the server.”

Pontén is celebrating the seizure as the biggest ever in Sweden and “probably one of the largest in Europe.”

Antipiratbyrån feels that the haul will seriously disrupt material becoming available on The Pirate Bay. Similar claims have been made in the past but have proven hollow.

The copies of the movies on this server will all have been copied from other places, and they too will be copied and distributed via other means. They will appear via The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites in the unlikely event they haven’t already – and that’s guaranteed.

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.

Another successful MMORPG is Entropia Universe. Designed by Swedish company MindArk, the game’s software is completely free of charge and there are no subscription fees. Instead, the game employs a type of micropayment system whereby the player can use real world money to buy in-game currency known as PED – Project Entropia Dollars. The neat part is that items purchased within the game have a real-life monetary value, since PEDs can be withdrawn from the game and changed back into real-life money.

Currently operating on Version 9.4, the entire Entropia Universe will be shut down at 00:00 UTC on Monday August 17th in preparation for Version 10 of the client which will follow a few days later.

However, for publisher MindArk the bandwidth implications for its 800,000 plus subscribers grabbing an update are significant – the Version 10 update is a whopping 4gig in size but as regular readers of TorrentFreak will be aware, it’s a cost that can be hugely reduced with everyone’s favorite swarming technology.

From last night the brand new version of the client (utilizing Crytec’s CryEngine2) was made available for pre-launch download via the Planet Calypso site – and for the first time, using BitTorrent of course.

BitTorrent use is becoming increasingly popular with MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, Project Powder, Fiesta Online and GodsWar which all use the protocol to save on bandwidth costs.

Users wanting to grab the update can do so here. If you’re new to BitTorrent and want to learn how it all works before you take the plunge, here are some handy TorrentFreak guides to get you started.

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

Fry also took the opportunity to have a swipe at the music industry and criticize the Digital Britain report. But enough of the boring stuff already.

Stephen’s antics haven’t gone unnoticed by Glasgow based games design company, T-Enterprise. Inspired by Stephen’s confession, they created a new Flash game entitled Stephen Fry and the Quantum of Torrents in which the player takes control of Stephen in his trademark black London taxi, dodging the law and downloading copies of House.

“When I heard about Stephen Fry’s admission of guilt about downloading illegally at the iTunes Festival I could not believe it! Especially not given the fact he was supposed to be speaking out about piracy in the industry!” said T-Enterprise’s Managing Director Sadia Chishti.

“So he had downloaded the rest of the [House] series legally but it seems that there is always the temptation to take the easy route. At least he has admitted it and not gone down the hypocritical one. What a refreshing change…”

The game is available from iTunes for just £9.99.

Yeah, right…. ;)

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