In these previous cases the pirated films were only on display in the stores, but the multinational electronics company LG takes it a step further. The company is selling TVs that have the functionality to accept a connection from an external USB device. This allows customers to enjoy pictures, music and videos directly on their TVs, all with a piracy endorsement from the manufacturer.

In the packaged English language manual, LG does not try to obfuscate the true purpose of this nifty USB feature – playing pirated movies. In the picture below, LG included pirated versions of The Incredibles and The Aviator, while explaining how easy it is to play the films directly on a TV.

LG seems to understand perfectly what customers want, but we doubt that the movie studios will be very excited about this piracy endorsement from the Koreans. Whether the pirated films were included intentionally is unknown, we expect that a company employee simply downloaded the movies off a file-sharing service out of habit or convenience.

Life’s Good isn’t it?

(via Fefe)

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.

The uncontested winner on BitTorrent this year is Star Trek, with well over 10 million downloads, many more than The Dark Knight got last year. The download statistics clearly show that BitTorrent use is still on the up, even though the relative increase is not as pronounced as in previous years.

As we look over the rest of the top 10, we see that there are quite a few differences between popularity at the box office and on BitTorrent. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and 2012 are ranked 2nd and 4th based on their worldwide grosses but didn’t make it into the top 10 list of most swapped movies.

On the contrary, RocknRolla is the third most pirated movie on BitTorrent this year, but with a minuscule worldwide revenue of $25 million it was ranked just 168th at the box office in 2008 when the movie came out. Part of the success of RocknRolla is that it was released by the infamous uploader aXXo whose releases are always guaranteed to have at least a few million downloads.

The data for this list is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including reports from all the large BitTorrent trackers. All release formats, including cammed versions are counted. Afterward, 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In 2002 he launched TuckerMax.com, a site where millions read about his real-life drunken and sexual antics, including one article about his earlier relationship with Katy Johnson, Miss Vermont 1999, which led to a lawsuit which fortunately for him, was later withdrawn.

Of course, Tucker Max had plenty more outrageous alcohol-fueled exploits to blog about, in fact so much so that in 2006 he released his book I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell which became a NY Times Bestseller in the same year.

Tomorrow, Max will bring his unique blend of entertainment to the big screen with the movie release of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. It will be a ‘limited’ release, which means that initially the movie will be available on a small number of screens then increasing as (hopefully) the movie grows in popularity.

However, at the moment the movie will only be available in the US, and initially only in Chicago. A Canadian release will take place in two weeks, which Max described as “stupid” while stressing that he has zero control over foreign distribution, “In ANY country.”

So what if you’d like to see the movie and it’s not available in your country?

Pirate it on the Internet.

“If you live outside the US and are desperate to see the movie and can’t find the release date in your country, then just pirate the movie and watch it online. I am serious. I have no issue with that,” says Max on the movie’s website. He also says the way to market a great movie is through word of mouth.

“Put it in front of people, let them see it, and have them tell their friends how much they liked it. That’s why we did the premiere tour. There is no better way to market quality, and by starting with a smaller release, it allows word of mouth to build and develop. This strategy has worked great with movies like ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and ‘Juno’,” says Max.

Of course, there’s no reason why the same can’t be true with BitTorrent. But there are plenty of other movies around, why watch this one?

“Go see this movie,” says Max. “At the very least, you will laugh a lot and you will definitely see the most epic shit scene in movie history.”

I’m there.

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

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

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

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

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.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TF: Amen.

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But there are other more subtle ways for the company to benefit from copyright infringement. Who remembers our article from 2008, when we showed an aXXo release being used to sell Macs in a John Lewis store? Well, now it looks like another retailer had the same idea – why spend money on real DVDs when you can just download them?

On a visit to the Rivas H2Ocio shopping mall in Madrid, Miguel Ángel Moro walked into a Saturn store. There, in the Apple section, he saw demo machines – and they were all running pirate movies.

Miguel told TorrentFreak, “This is not the first time I’ve seen this stuff in MediaMarkt/Saturn, a big consumer electronics store in Europe. They sell from computers to washing machines, including DVD and Blu-ray discs.”

Displaying their own DVDs is illegal without clearance, so they might as well grab a copy off BitTorrent and safe a few bucks – right? Sharing copyrighted files is legal in Spain, but not for commercial use which is clearly the case here.

Below is a photograph taken by Miguel of a ‘Cars’ Blu-ray movie rip running on VLC Media Player, on a Macbook, in the store.

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

“It is extremely serious,” District Court’s chief Lena Berke said in a comment. “This is a breach of confidentiality, and therefore, we intend to notify the police,” she added, noting that it hasn’t influenced the court’s ruling in any way.

Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde believes that there might have been more people who knew about the outcome beforehand. Just 10 minutes after the verdict was announced, movie industry lawyer Monique Wadsted told a Swedish newspaper that the 107 was very well written, and that it would hold up all the way to the Supreme Court. “It wouldn’t surprise me if she wrote the verdict,” Peter said.

Peter Sunde’s lawyer Peter Althin was unpleasantly surprised and said he found it totally unacceptable that a verdict could be released in advance like this. He said that he is unaware of any previous cases where this has happened before. Sunde himself was not that bothered and joked about the leak. “Really, it’s a bit LOL,” he wrote on Twitter. “It used to be only movies, now even verdicts are out before the official release.”

The Pirate Bay crew had anticipated a defeat in the case, but the jail time was unexpected. Nevertheless, Peter is still positive about the outcome of the appeal and he’s going to wrap up the tumultuous day with a party in his hometown Malmo. “I’m gonna play some techno,” he said.

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

InfoPSP didn’t host any illicit content itself but instead offered links to video games, movies and music hosted on 3rd party sites. In Spain, merely linking to copyright works is not illegal. InfoPSP carried advertising and it was widely reported in the Spanish media that this was the reason the admin, Adrián Gómez Llorente, aka Kuve, was found guilty and sentenced to fines and 6 months in jail. However, in the murky world of copyright infringement, it’s no surprise to discover that all is not as it seems.

In September 2008 we reported on the case of Sharemula, a site which offered eDonkey links to movies, music, software and games. Just like InfoPSP, Sharemula found itself the subject of legal action but eventually the admins were found not guilty, since they had not carried out copyright infringement for profit. Here’s the strange part though – Sharemula DID carry advertising, just like InfoPSP.

Seeking clarification, TorrentFreak contacted the offices of David Bravo, a Spanish lawyer who specializes in intellectual property rights. According to Spanish law, the reason why the Sharemula admins were acquitted was because in order to have committed a crime, direct profit must’ve been made from the actual dissemination of the copyright works. Since the site carried only links, any dissemination was carried out by the site’s users and not the site itself. In short, no crime was committed on Sharemula and bizarrely, no crime was committed on InfoPSP either.

So it begs the question; how on earth did the admin of InfoPSP get found guilty of criminal copyright infringement and sentenced to 6 months jail and fines of 4,900 euros?

The answer lies, unsurprisingly, with the complainants in the case – the Spanish Association of Publishers and Distributors Entertainment Software (ADESE) and the Spanish Videographic Union (UVE). Of course, file-sharing site admins being protected under Spanish law is the last thing these groups need. What they actually need is someone’s severed head displayed prominently on a pike in order to deter others, and a widely-reported 6 month jail sentence is ideal for reaching this aim.

To get the truth, lawyer David Bravo conducted an interview with KUVE, the convicted InfoPSP admin, which shines an awful lot of light on this issue – and pretty shocking it is too. First off David asked Kuve if he’d ever carried any copyright material on the InfoPSP server;

“Absolutely not. The web server contained only the files needed for the operation of the forum,” explained Kuve. “Under no circumstances did we ever host any copyrighted works.”

David then asked Kuve if it was true that InfoPSP simply displayed links which were supplied by users of the site. “Indeed, the website was a forum where users could share a link to a file,” Kuve replied. “These links were torrents, hosting servers or file upload sites like Megaupload, Gigasize, Rapidshare etc.”

Kuve then went on to explain that he and his lawyer understood that all ongoing trials against similar sites (such as Sharemula) were resolved in the favor of the sites in the criminal courts. However, the threat of being chased by the complainants for damages through the civil courts was very real and the costs associated with this would have been too much for Kuve to cope with.

So a deal was done. Kuve would admit to being a criminal and accept the court’s decision with the assurance that he wouldn’t be chased through the civil courts by the plaintiffs. Kuve and his lawyer decided that it would make sense, financially at least.

“I am a student and therefore do not have the financial resources needed to hire a defense expert that could ensure results in the trial. Besides, continuing with the trial meant that the civil courts could convict me and I would be forced to pay financial compensation which I couldn’t cope with,” said Kuve.

“I would have loved to defend my interests to the end and it is for this that I wish all the people in my situation who can afford to stay and fight for something that affects us all, the best of luck.”

“The real news here is that a person has been found guilty of something that was not an offense under 100% of the judges who had resolved earlier identical cases,” says a concerned David Bravo.

Javier de la Cueva, a lawyer working with David, told TorrentFreak something that will be of interest to lawyers representing admins like Kuve in the future. Javier and David maintain a repository relating to Spanish court decisions on hyperlinking and release these documents under a CC-By License.

Thanks to this repository, any lawyer in Spain can use the documents to defend similar cases. The documents have already enabled lawyer Franciso José Andújar to successfully defend TVMix.

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

In a recent interview, Eddie Cunningham, president of Universal Pictures International said, “Your campaigning needs to evolve over time and have an appropriate message for today,” while denying that previous more-flashy campaigns had failed to deter piracy.

So is this a new, more sensitive approach from a movie industry looking to make friends rather than enemies? In part, yes. The movie industry does want to appear nicer to the public, after all they aren’t likely to be the main targets in the next phase in the war on piracy. That unenviable position is reserved for the ISPs – and it’s back to the old style when Cunningham speaks of them.

“If you or I owned a house in which prostitution was taking place, or where drug dealing was happening, we’d be responsible,” he said, implying that the ISPs are making money from serious crime while doing nothing about stopping it. Cunningham seems oblivious to the fact that if he plans to make a partner out of ISPs, you don’t start the relationship by referring to them in public as some sort of digital pimp.

But perhaps his most curious comment is that he feels that society is turning against piracy, viewing it as something going out of vogue. “Research shows us that most people now find it unfashionable – there’s been a gradual change in attitudes,” he said.

Quick – someone tell the Wolverine downloaders…

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

Established in 2000 by director Rick L. Winters, Annodam Productions is an independent film company. A forward looking outfit, Annodam will premiere its latest movie ‘Blank‘, worldwide today.

‘Blank’ is the story of a Johnny, a young boy who witnesses the violent death of his parents and older sister. Roll on some 20 years later and Johnny becomes involved in crime with his adoptive father – who is also a crime boss. While watching a game of poker Johnny discovers who murdered his family and sets about planning his revenge. Johnny unwittingly becomes involved with a pair of serial killers and the whole movie climaxes with a bizarre and shocking end.

While the plot may seems standard Hollywood fare, the way this movie has been financed and is set to be distributed is not – Director Rick L.Winters explains, “The thing that makes this film unique is that it is a co-op based concept where the entire cast and crew worked on a deferred percentage of the film’s gross. In other words, the cast and crew own a percentage of the film’s gross, so the profits are not going to Hollywood executives but instead into the pockets of the filmmakers themselves.”

After receiving several distribution offers for ‘Blank’, Rick turned them all down.

“I have seen firsthand the greed that lurks in the Hollywood corporate circles,” he said while explaining that after he released his first film, the cast and crew couldn’t understand why a distribution company was making all the money. So instead, Rick decided to let the audience distribute ‘Blank’ for him – via BitTorrent.

“This time around the fate of the cast and crew getting paid is in the hands of the audience who watch the film. No Hollywood bank accounts being filled to turn out more crappy remakes,” he said, while adding that the future of film is “in the home market, through peer to peer distribution.”

Today, ‘Blank’ is released on DVD for $14.99, via online streaming and of course, for free on BitTorrent. “No one should have to pay for a film they did not like,” says Rick. “No one should be denied the right to enjoy the art of film.”

The idea is that if people like the movie after they have seen it, they should go to the ‘Blank’ website and make a donation. People are asked to donate what they feel the movie is worth, and in return will be invited to follow the production of the next movie, which they will have helped finance through their donation.

Rick told TorrentFreak, “I am excited with the aspects of peer to peer distribution and the possibilities. Giving everyone the opportunity to see my film for free in hope of receiving donations is a little nerve wrecking – wondering if I will receive enough donations to make my next film. The concept is still scary for independent filmmakers who don’t have the big budgets like the big studios and most of the time drain their personal accounts and run up credit just to get their film made, in hopes of recouping the cost of making the film.”

Several large BitTorrent sites including Mininova will be offering ‘Blank’, but undoubtedly it will spread to many others too. Rick L. Winters is also writing a book which will document the whole process so that others can use the same methods to distribute their own movies.

“I can only hope for the success of this endeavor to show the world that the revolution of peer to peer distribution can no longer be ignored and the time is now,” Rick told TorrentFreak. “I decided to try the concept of a coop base film in hopes of encouraging other independent filmmakers to come together and create and share the art of film for EVERYONE to enjoy.”

Congratulations to Rick and the crew for effectively ending the piracy of their movies and we wish them the best of luck with ‘Blank’ and all future success.

You can grab the torrent for the movie from Mininova.

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

There are several large topsites hosted in Sweden, some of which host hundreds of terabytes of pirated material. However, according to ’scene’ etiquette, the files on these are not supposed to leak to other (more public) file-sharing networks but eventually they all do, with most of the big releases managing this in mere minutes.

This puts these servers close to the top of the ‘Piracy Pyramid‘ and one of the priority targets of anti-piracy outfits. Two weeks ago, Pirate Bay co-founder Anakata told the court that these scene members “hate The Pirate Bay” because they prefer to keep their releases within a select group.

Henrik Pontén from Antipiratbyrån – the Swedish anti-piracy office – applauded the police and said that this was one of the largest busts ever, and the largest in Sweden. According to one of our own sources, several well known scene groups were using the servers, which means that they may have been compromised.

For now, the investigation focuses on the person who operated the server in question. “A person suspected of running the server has been identified and it is now up to the police to investigate this. Now, we will continue to look for similar pirate servers,” Pontén told Aftonbladet.

Pontén also claimed that the Sunnydale topsite was the source of all pirated material available on The Pirate Bay, but this was denied by Peter Sunde. “More than 800,000 people have uploaded to The Pirate Bay, so I don’t believe it’s the source of everything. But it is possible that it’s a major source,” he said.

Antipiratbyrån’s involvement in this raid is questionable. In 2005 the police conducted an similar raid at Swedish ISP Bahnhof, only to be presented with evidence that Antipiratbyrån themselves had hired someone to plant copyright material. It turned out that the infiltrator was far from a passive observer. The infiltrator had transferred 68,000 files and went as far as buying hardware for the server to increase its storage capacity.

Antipiratbyrån was later sued for illegal trespassing and harassment because of these entrapment practices which are illegal in Sweden. Now, four years on and they are again involved in a similar raid, but whether they had any help from an insider this time is unknown. The exact role Antipiratbyrån played in this raid remains unclear, but it is likely that they tipped off the police about the location and existence of ‘Sunnydale.’

Pontén said that his organization will continue its “war on piracy.”

Update: Only one of Sunnydale’s servers was seized, the location of the other servers remains unknown.

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