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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The jury at Teesside Crown Court took just a couple of hours to return a unanimous verdict of “Not Guilty” – Ellis walked away a free man.

Ellis kept a low profile as he left court, refusing to comment to waiting reporters. The recording industry, fronted by the BPI, didn’t hide their feelings.

“This is a hugely disappointing verdict which is out of line with decisions made in similar cases around the world,” the group said in a statement.

“The defendant made nearly £200,000 by exploiting other people’s work without permission. The case shows that artists and music companies need better protection.”

Behind the scenes, some observers felt that while this defeat for the music industry was welcome, there were still concerns that things wouldn’t end with Ellis’s acquittal. And they appear to have been right.

Speaking at a press conference to launch the annual Digital Music Report, IFPI spokesman John Kennedy said that the ‘not guilty’ verdict was not the end of the road. The recording industry would “find other ways” to punish Ellis, and is now seriously considering taking action against him through the civil courts.

Kennedy said there is a commitment by the industry to retrieve the money the users of OiNK donated to the site, and give it to the artists whose music was shared there.

He also attacked the decision to charge Ellis with fraud instead of copyright infringement, and criticized UK legislation for being out of date.

Ellis confirmed earlier that his acquittal did not mean that OiNK was set for a revival. “Absolutely not,” he said, while adding that he would just like to get on with his life now.

It seems that IFPI have other plans.

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Peter Makepeace, prosecuting, naturally painted an extremely negative picture, labeling the Pink Palace as a place designed from the ground up as a personal money-making machine for Ellis.

“21 million downloads. 600,000-plus albums. £300,000. This was a cash cow, it was perfectly designed to profit him and it was as dishonest as the day is long,” said Makepeace.

It is common sense to come to the conclusion that Oink was dishonest, claimed the prosecution lawyer, adding that Ellis knows that it’s dishonest “to promote, encourage and facilitate criminal activity,” and accusing him of telling the jury “persistent, cunning, calculated lies.”

It would, of course, be dishonest to promote “criminal activity”, but Mr Makepeace should be very well aware that the activity engaged in by OiNK’s users is covered under civil law.

Switching momentarily from criticism to praise and then back again, Makepeace said that the OiNK website was a “wonderful machine” for sharing music but noted that while the site had a really good brand name, it was a brand synonymous with “ripping off music.”

University of London professor Birgitte Andersenok gave evidence earlier in the trial, stating that file-sharing didn’t hurt the music industry and led to more sales. Mr Makepeace trashed her evidence.

“It’s nonsense, it’s flannel, it’s verbiage, it’s garbage,” he told the Court.

For the defense, Alex Stein said that Ellis had never knowingly acted dishonestly and that in 2004 when OiNK was launched, it was a “brave new world” on the Internet.

“In many societies he’d be an innovator, a creator, a Richard Branson. His talent would be moulded, not crushed by some sort of media organization,” he said.

The media organization being referred to by Stein was the IFPI, who he said had never requested that OiNK be shut down, and had instead “sat and watched.”

Gazette Live reports that Stein went on to launch a scathing attack on the IFPI.

“They used this site. Their own members used this site to promote their own music and now they’re crushing him. Maybe he grew too big for them, maybe they’ve taken a different marketing approach. I don’t know. But it was decided that this site should be taken down.

“All of us here are being manipulated to some sort of marketing strategy by the IFPI. If anybody’s acting dishonestly it’s them,” he said.

At the end of the two week trial the jury returned a unanimous verdict (12 to 0). Alan Ellis is not guilty of Conspiracy to Defraud the music industry. He walked out of Teesside Crown Court a free man today, his name cleared.

The verdict cannot be appealed and Ellis can finally put the past behind him and move on.

Breaking story…

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Yesterday Ellis stated that he had initially hosted the tracker in his bedroom while studying at Teesside University, and used the coding experience to develop his skills in order to bring future employment possibilities.

Today more details became available, which appear to show that Ellis believed that he operated his site within the law.

While it’s impossible to say what goes on inside another person’s head, when it comes to the law the average BitTorrent site admin or keen BitTorrent user will be mostly tuned into the requirements of copyright and violations of copyright law. In basic terms relating to this case, the unauthorized copying and/or distribution of copyright works, both illegal under UK copyright law.

BitTorrent trackers such as OiNK do not distribute, store or duplicate copyright works, so when Ellis said yesterday that he viewed what he did as similar to how the post office or telephone company operates, i.e directing other people’s data (illegal or not), he clearly believes that type of operation is permissible under copyright law. Indeed, unlike in other jurisdictions, there is no offense of ‘facilitation’ under UK copyright law.

“I didn’t think the site was abusing the copyrights,” he said, and in the above context he was right. But if OiNK wasn’t abusing copyrights, that responsibility must fall elsewhere – at the feet of the site’s members.

“If these people chose to download music and in doing so were breaking the law, then that was their responsibility, not mine,” Ellis told the Court. “I never saw that I was responsible for them downloading music.”

While Ellis can’t be held responsible for what others do on his site, he was candid when it came to admitting that he made use of some of the material indexed by the tracker. Ellis told the Court that he spent a lot of money buying music, but had used file-sharing as a mechanism to discover new artists.

“From my experience if I download music and I like it, I would go out and buy it. I understood most people to have that view,” he explained.

According to Gazette Live, Ellis also told the Court that he responded “out of good will” to takedown requests received from the infamous Web Sheriff anti-piracy company on behalf of rights holders.

So, if OiNK didn’t break copyright law by not transferring, copying or storing copyright works, and there is no offense of facilitation of the same under UK law, why was the site shut down and why is this trial taking place?

Maybe because the BPI and IFPI knew that copyright infringement charges wouldn’t stick, they instead guided the police down another route, that of Conspiracy to Defraud.

Ellis denies that charge and the case continues.

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

From the very beginning, the music industry has pictured the site’s founder as someone who charges users for access to the site, claiming that it was set up to make profits from infringing on the rights of the major record labels.

Its users were criminals who conspired to steal from the music industry for reasons other than the enjoyment of music, music industry groups claimed. “This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure,” Jeremy Banks of the IFPI said shortly after the site fell, insinuating that profits were made behind the scenes.

Last week the prosecution in the OiNK trial continued down the same path, pointing out that Ellis had gathered nearly $300,000 from voluntary donations over the years. They made it seem like Ellis was running a profitable business but failed to mention that a large chunk of this money was continuously invested back into the site and its running costs.

No proof was provided that Ellis used any of the donation money to enrich himself. He had the equivalent of $32,500 in several savings accounts at the time of his arrest. Ellis planned to use this money to buy servers for the tracker.

This week Ellis has the chance to start telling the Court his side of the story, and has been detailing how he initially hosted the tracker in his own bedroom when he was studying at Teesside University.

Ellis explained how OiNK began as a pet project with the sole purpose of improving his “outdated” UK honours degree in software engineering. “I didn’t have an intention, I was furthering my skills as a programmer, as a software engineer,” Ellis told Teesside Crown Court today.

Ellis, who was working on the backend of the site to make sure that everything kept running, was merely providing a platform for OiNK’s users to share whatever they wanted. He denied the charges of conspiracy to defraud the music industry.

The case continues.

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

The jurors were further warned by Judge Briggs not to Google for OiNK or do any other form of research on the Internet. This might be a good suggestion, as many of the mainstream press reports thus far have been littered with inaccuracies.

Even the BBC report the site was free to join, but in the very next sentence say it cost £5. In another article they report it cost $5.

“It would be most unfortunate if any of you did any private research on the internet relating to this matter. Please don’t,” said Briggs. “It’s only likely to cause difficulties and could in theory abort the trial. So, ladies and gentlemen, no independent research.”

Judge Briggs told the jurors that the defendant, OiNK admin Alan Ellis, is charged with an offence of conspiracy to defraud.

“Put very simply it is suggested he was involved in a website that was used to distribute sound recordings and things of that nature in breach of copyright,” he said.

Ellis denies the charge that he “conspired with others unknown” to defraud the music industry.

Today the trial continued and the jury was told by the prosecution that the OiNK tracker facilitated 21 million downloads. Ellis, who accepted donations from members, had gathered almost $300,000 (£190,000) in several PayPal accounts over the years, money that allegedly came from donations.

“Every penny was going to Mr Ellis,” said Peter Makepeace, prosecuting. “He hadn’t sung a note, he hadn’t played an instrument, he hadn’t produced anything. The money was not going to the people it rightly belonged to, it was going to Mr Ellis.”

The prosecution failed to mention that the money was used by Ellis to pay for the servers and hosting, which probably cost him several thousand dollars a month.

The court was further told how OiNK did not host or distribute any music itself, but instead indexed files shared by its users for others to download.

When responding to a description of how BitTorrent works, that leechers share what they download with other peers, thus speeding up downloads, Mr Makepeace commented: “That is the beauty of the Oink website. It never had to upload any music itself, all it did was provide the facility of linking one person to another who wanted that music.”

After his arrest, the prosecution said that Ellis told officers: “All I do is really like Google, to really provide a connection between people. None of the music is on my website.”

The case continues.

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

The private site tracked hundreds and thousands of torrents linking to the finest recordings from virtually every musical genre. With millions of peers, it was more popular than many public trackers.

The site was shut down in a joint effort by Dutch and British law enforcement in October 2007, based on intel provided by two music industry lobby organizations, the IFPI and the BPI. The police arrested Alan Ellis, the founder of the site, and months later several uploaders were arrested as well.

Four of the uploaders pleaded guilty at Teesside Crown Court in December 2008, where they were all charged with copyright infringement offenses. The four were later sentenced to community service and fines.

The trial of OiNK founder Alan Ellis was pushed back and started today at Middlesbrough Crown Court. Due to a press boycott of the previous court hearings, there was no information available on the reasons for the delay.

What we do know is that Ellis has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the music industry for his role in the OiNK tracker.

During the first day of his trial little has happened. The case has been adjourned until tomorrow when the jury will be assigned. There is still a reporting ban in place on three specific issues, but the trial can and will be reported on.

We will cover the rest of the trial, which is expected to end next week, in the coming days.

Update: Court documents list the remaining uploader as part of the trial, but new information received by TorrentFreak says that his case is due later this year.

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Today the group serves more than 16 million visitors a month on its website alone, and a multiple of that on the other torrent sites they distribute their releases on.

Several days ago EZTV’s website suddenly went offline without prior notice, something that usually leads to wild rumors about what the cause. Luckily EZTV’s problems are due to technical problems and they are currently working on a comeback.

EZTV’s Novaking told TorrentFreak that a rebuild of the servers stuffed up and they are currently waiting for some tech people to look into it. It’s not clear when the site will return, but it’s safe to assume that it will be a matter of days, not weeks or months.

This is not the first prolonged outage the popular TV-torrent site has suffered this year. During the summer the website was down for six weeks. It went offline because of hardware problems, but EZTV decided to take advantage of the situation and relocate all hardware to a new datacenter while implementing several new features.

Even though the website is currently offline, EZTV’s releases are still widely available though a number of sites. “You can still get our stuff from Mininova, The Pirate Bay, Twitter and Zoink,” Novaking told TorrentFreak.

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

“The lesson of iTunes and Spotify is that what people want is ease of use and convenience and cheapness. And you only have to look at the decrease there has been in filesharing since the increase in popularity of Spotify.
“You only have to look at the number of people who came off illegal filesharing when iTunes came out to know that filesharing isn’t the answer, it’s not the future, it’s not valuable of itself – it’s a technology that currently is being used to circumvent the law.”

However, his words, as reported by the Birmingham Post, lack a certain ring of truth. For example, let’s take the claim that file-sharing decreased after Spotify gained popularity. While we agree that the service has the potential to convert many music pirates, its effect on the overall volume of file-sharing is simply not there.

The Pirate Bay informed TorrentFreak that traffic from the UK is still growing, at an average of around 1% per month. Mininova likewise has seen a 15% growth, of 7 million unique visitors a month, from 38.6 million in September 2008, to 45.6 million in August of 2009. Clearly Spotify hasn’t decreased much. Strike 1.

More worrying though is the claim that file-sharing technology is not valuable. For one, Spotify itself is based on file-sharing technology, with the brain behind the popular BitTorrent client uTorrent as one of its main developers. That aside, the state-funded BBC is involved in various BitTorrent-based projects, and the technology chiefs there believe that P2P TV has a future, and many independent artists are already putting it to use.

Over the past few years, we’ve brought you dozens of stories about people being enabled by the technology, from independent artists, to filmmakers (large and small) and even large corporations that can now effectively distribute data without incredible bandwidth outlay. File-sharing technology is very valuable to those people, Strike 2 for the MP from Birmingham.

That brings us to another statement Simon made, with Yahoo reporting him as saying that whilst it is illegal, there is currently no anti-piracy legislation. Those that have read our stories about Davenport Lyons, and ACS (and the thousands they have targeted) know there is indeed legislation. So too does Alan Ellis, and the Oink uploaders who were sentenced earlier this year. For Mr Simon, that’s strike 3.

It’s just lucky for him that no-one’s proposed a law where if an MP has gone on the record and made 3 basic factual errors, his parliamentary benefits should be cut off or throttled.

Mr Simon was contacted for comment, but did not reply at time of press

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

Following a BPI investigation, police (without fanfare or media reports) swooped on members of the group, the earliest back in May. Another seemingly significant arrest took place in June.

In early morning raids, as many as a dozen officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Hi-Tech Crime Unit and BPI investigators conducted searches on the addresses and took the suspects away for questioning, along with seized computers, cell phones, CDs and MP3 players, bank statements and sundry other items.

After extended questioning the police charged the suspects with Conspiracy to Defraud (the music industry). They were released on bail and ordered to reappear at later dates.

Around a week after our article, IFPI issued their own press release (which was used as the basis of dozens of other news articles) which largely confirmed our earlier report but in much lower detail, instead preferring to include quotes from David Lammy MP, Minister of State for Intellectual Property, and the heads of the IFPI and BPI’s anti-piracy operations.

DV8, like many release groups, specialized in pre-release piracy – in this case the publication of music on the Internet before official release dates. No-one needs to be reminded of the hatred the music industry holds for these type of leaks, after all when OiNK was raided it was the availability of pre-release material that dominated the news and was often provided as the justification for taking the site down.

In order to put the material on to the Internet in this way, Scene groups and individual uploaders need contacts somewhere in the supply chain, so-called industry insiders who act as suppliers for pre-release material. In the case of the OiNK uploaders, they had simply purchased CDs legitimately from online retailers who shipped products a day or two early, possibly in error. But to have the really juicy leaks, people more deeply involved in the supply chain can prove invaluable.

Based on information provided by our previously-reliable sources in this investigation, today we are able to reveal that during late August two more arrests were made of individuals the police believe acted as suppliers to DV8. One of those individuals is an executive at a record label.

In the meantime the alleged leader of DV8 has seen his bail pushed back to mid November pending further investigations. Our sources believe that this delay is due to the police needing more time to track down additional suppliers, one of which we are told works for a major media outlet.

Another member of DV8 who was initially arrested back in June and was the subject of the one and only triumphant IFPI press release mentioned earlier, has been rather more fortunate. He has been released with a police warning and told that charges would not be pressed against him. IFPI are unlikely to issue an updated press release about this release of a suspect though – they have also never mentioned the earliest and most important arrest made by the police in this investigation.

After word spread of the initial raids, the remaining members of the DV8 team went into hiding, taking their servers down and removing their topsite accounts. However, these type of groups can be remarkably resilient and can be quick to reform.

Indeed, while DV8 may be ‘dead’, some of its members live on and the releases have continued under a new group name – around one hundred of them so far, including some very big releases indeed.

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

Now, according to information leaked to TorrentFreak, one of the most prolific music release groups around has suffered a significant setback after police quietly started arresting members during the last month. The latest arrest came yesterday, as police and BPI investigators conducted an early morning raid on a senior member of the group.

At this stage we cannot publish the group’s name (see update at the bottom of this article for group name) but we believe that they are responsible for more than 3,000 single and album releases. The group was relatively young and had a membership of less than ten individuals, although they aren’t all based in the UK.

The first arrest happened mid-May and the most recent yesterday, conducted in a similar fashion to earlier raids against those involved in the TV Links and AradiTracker cases.

In early morning raids, officers from the Metropolitan Police’s Hi-Tech Crime Unit backed up by senior investigators from the BPI took the suspects by surprise. Sources close to the investigation told TorrentFreak that as many as 15 officers conducted searches on the target addresses, arresting suspects and taking them away for questioning.

Hardware was of great interest to the police as they seized large amounts of electrical equipment including all computers, cell phones, various CDs and MP3 players, bank statements and sundry other items from the addresses.

After hours of questioning by police in the presence of BPI investigators, in common with the OiNK uploaders the suspects were charged with Conspiracy to Defraud (the music industry), bailed and ordered to reappear at later dates.

According to sources, all remaining group members have gone into hiding, all servers are now offline and topsite accounts have been deleted.

More on this breaking story as we get it.

Update: Our sources have agreed to let us name the group – it is DV8. Their latest release was Brokencyde-Im_Not_A_Fan_But_The_Kids_Like_It-2009-DV8 – time will tell if it will be the last.

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According to Pecknold the major labels seem to be anti-music. What really helped him and other bands to shape their sound and spark their creativity is file-sharing. “That was how I was exposed to almost all of the music that I love to this day, and still that’s the easiest way to find really obscure stuff,” he told the BBC.

“I’ve discovered so much music through that medium. That will be true of any artist my age, absolutely,” Pecknold added. He explained that he is not the only musician to have benefited from ’stealing’ music, as the major labels like to call it. Having access to an unlimited library of music only makes a musician better.

Indeed, many BitTorrent trackers dedicated to music are populated by thousands of artists, who share their own work and that of others. Most famously, Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor was a proud member of the now defunct OiNK tracker.

Pecknold is no different, and he recalls the finesse of his own music changing for the better after his dad brought home a modem to connect the family to the Internet – a candy store for the modern age musician. And if the fans want to share their latest album he’s totally fine with that.

“I’ve downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records – why would I care if somebody downloads ours? That’s such a petty thing to care about. I mean, how much money does one person need? I think it’s disgusting when people complain about that, personally,” he admitted.

The labels have a different view on the piracy issue of course, claiming that they lose billions of dollars because of it. Most people know by now that this is far from the truth. However, after chasing down music fans in court they are now starting to lose respect among musicians.

While they still might be able to successfully market a kid star here and there, most artists don’t really need a label to distribute music in the digital age. BitTorrent does that just fine, right Robin?

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

The individuals were charged with copyright infringement and sentenced to fines and community service, rather than custodial sentences the prosecution had been pushing for.

Steven Diprose was sentenced to 180 hours community service, and ordered to pay £378 in Court costs. Michael Myers was told to pay a £500 fine. Mark Tugwell has to undertake 100 hours community service and pay £378 Court costs. The fourth uploader, James Garner was sentenced to 50 hours community service and also has to pay £378 Court costs.

What remains are the cases against one other uploader and Alan Ellis, the administrator of OiNK. Unlike other file-sharing related cases, the charges against Ellis are not related to copyright offenses. Instead, he has been charged with “conspiracy to defraud”.

Ellis’ case was scheduled to be heard today at the Teesside Crown Court, but the session didn’t last long as the trial was postponed till January 2010. Due to the press blackout, TorrentFreak was unable to find out whether a reason has been given for the delay.

The OiNK shutdown was an international operation. Codenamed “Operation Ark Royal”, it involved co-ordinated action by both British and Dutch police forces. IFPI and the BPI, two well known anti-piracy organizations, allegedly assisted in gathering the ‘evidence’ that led to the arrests.

The tracker – which served some 180,000 users including NiN frontman Trent Reznor – was shut down but several replacements took over including Waffles.fm and What.cd. The latter developed a community of nearly 100,000 members and recently celebrated the upload of the 500,000th torrent.

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

Yesterday, Spanish Criminal Court No.1 made its decision in the case of file-sharing site infopsp.com. According to the complainants – Spanish Association of Publishers and Distributors Entertainment Software (ADESE) and the Spanish Videographic Union (UVE) – the site, which had around 17,300 members, operated illegally.

The site didn’t host any illicit content itself but instead offered links to video games, movies and music hosted on 3rd party sites. Under Spanish law, so far so good. However, in order to stay legal in Spain, the site needed to demonstrate it was not profiting from copyright infringement – this is where it all fell apart.

The court heard that the site carried advertising from Impresiones Web, Google Adsense, Canalmail and Correodirect and also gained revenue via premium SMS. According to the court, this turned the site from a legal entity into one profiting from copyright infringement – a criminal offense.

The judge handed 22 year-old site administrator Adrián Gómez Llorente a total fine of 4,900 euros ($6,500) which includes compensation for the complainants. Llorente was also sentenced to 6 months jail but it’s unlikely he will serve this since he doesn’t have an existing criminal record. It is believed that this is the first conviction of its type in Spain. Neither party intend to appeal.

ADESE President Alberto Gonzalez Lorca said of the decision, “This ruling is a very important precedent for the videogame industry which is at the forefront of creating jobs and wealth even in a financial crisis, but is helpless against a problem as serious as piracy.”

The big question now is how a court would view donations given to torrent sites. We’ve already seen the police in the UK call voluntary donations “subscriptions” in the OiNK case. Time will tell how a Spanish court will view them.

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

Outlaw.lv, one of the largest trackers in Latvia is currently offline following pressure from the Economic Police, while rumors say that one of the top uploaders was detained for a few hours. “Economic Police has shut down our project. Outlaw LV will be back in a new way and with a new mission,” reads a message on the front page.

It is clear though that the authorities aim to take more sites offline. Danger.lv is another tracker that has received a letter from the police, and they decided to pull the plug voluntarily, for the time being.

Similar to last summer, several other BitTorrent trackers became extra cautious after the renewed attention from the authorities. Bithack.lv was one of the trackers that took action. The site didn’t close however, but now serves recipes instead of torrent files.

TorrentFreak spoke with one admin of a local BitTorrent tracker, who informed us that they have also been receiving letters from anti-piracy organizations. “A handful of popular trackers are taking severe countermeasures to avoid any possibility of takedown and continue to serve the community for now, hoping that no takedowns will follow,” he said.

As with many of the takedown attempts in other parts of the world, lobbyists from the entertainment industry are the ones tipping off the police, and assisting in ‘evidence gathering’ and even raids. In Latvia it’s LAmpA, but the BPI and IFPI have also been assisting the authorities, most notably with the raid on the popular music tracker OiNK.

Needless to say, these anti-piracy outfits are not the most objective partner when it comes to solving these type of digital ‘offenses’, and it’s worrisome to see how they appear to be increasingly intertwined with local authorities.

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

Site administrator Alan Ellis was arrested immediately and eventually charged with conspiracy to defraud. Five others, who were arrested months later, were accused of uploading music to others via the site.

Four of the uploaders plead guilty at Teesside Crown Court last December, where they were all charged with copyright infringement offenses. The four have now been sentenced.

Steven Diprose was sentenced to 180 hours community service, and has to pay £378 in Court costs. Michael Myers was ordered to pay a £500 fine. Mark Tugwell has to undertake 100 hours community service and has to pay £378 Court costs. The fourth uploader, James Garner was sentenced to 50 hours community service and also has to pay £378 Court costs.

For one other uploader and OiNK admin Allan Ellis the wait continues. Their cases have been adjourned and they will appear before court in March.

A source close to one of the convicted uploaders told TorrentFreak in a response: “[The Judge] swallowed the prosecution line completely that initial seeders were causing major damage to the copyright holders, and particularly uploaders who uploaded before the official release date. The fact that all the early uploads were only 1 or 2 days early and that 3 out 4 of the uploaders bought their CDs online did not sway him. All the retailers, quite naturally, denied this.”

We were further told that, if the defendants had not had such good references and strong legal representation, the Judge would have seriously considered a custodial sentence. This ruling, the first of its kind in the UK, will most certainly be used as a precedent for future cases.

Developing story, more info will be added later.

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

This cuts to the crux of public consultations. Conclusions can only be as good as the data these consultations receive. We have seen many times how companies are willing to lie repeatedly when it comes to P2P, in order to maintain their positions. From Comcast and their ‘Sandvining’, the incorrect accusations of lawyers, MediaDefender and their entire business model, to anti-piracy agencies pushing their unique version of events to get the police to conduct raids. In an area where the people with the money and influence are well known for avoiding the truth on occasion, will the BERR release all documents to allow public scrutiny and thus ensure accuracy?

The answer, in a nutshell, is no. TorrentFreak contacted the BERR and pointed out that confidential submissions are as likely to be marked as such to cover lies and diversions from the truth as confidential business practices, and wondered how this was going to be handled. Also, as the BERR likely doesn’t contain experts that have the depth in knowledge of this subject as our readers, will they be able to spot errors without the public assistance that publishing would bring? Clare Keen at the BERR press office responded saying:

On the issue of standards of evidence, all responses received are considered on their merit. We expect there to be differences in opinions and in information respondents choose to submit in support of their position. However we do not rely solely on such submissions or a single information source when deciding policy. We use a range of sources to enable us to cross check and investigate claims to develop our own understanding and arrive at our own conclusions.

On your second point, in our experience the main reason why a company requests that their response be kept confidential is because their submission has included details of their own commercial business/contracts or operations – information they do not wish their rivals and competitors to have access to.

We would always seek to collaborate or cross-check key points of information. Additionally if a party deliberately provided false information they would risk losing all credibility within Government on future consultations or discussions.

However, it may be a moot point. The Guardian newspaper reported on the consultation saying that a proposal by Ingenious Media was getting serious consideration. The company, a London based consulting and venture capital firm, has reportedly proposed making broadband providers legally liable for copyright infringement by their customers. In return they get a small sum every time a legal download of a song or film happens. Where the money for this will come from, or what will qualify (such as Jamendo or other CC music tracks) for the payment isn’t mentioned. Also not mentioned is how an ISP is supposed to be able to regulate the actions of their customers, without using highly invasive methods, worse than the DPI methods that have already been protested.

The BERR finally published the non-confidential recommendations today, and the BERR has told TorrentFreak that the number of confidential and partially confidential responses were ‘a small number’. In a nutshell, though, the only respondents that wanted a co-regulatory approach, were rights holders. Everyone else expressed no desire for it, and significant concerns were raised over transparency and privacy issues. We’ll have a more detailed look at responses later.

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

The American auto industry has appeared similarly insular. Year after year it has churned out large and poorly performing vehicles, aspiring only to the style de-jour. Heavy cars that are cheaply constructed in many cases, and with poor performance in comparison to similar vehicles from foreign car companies. If all else failed, there was the inevitable appeal to ego, pointing out that American cars and trucks are bigger than the competition, with an attitude of ‘bigger is better’. However, their refusal to adopt modern technology has created vehicles that handle poorly, and are more prone to breakdowns. US Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY 5th) understands this well, he’s had problems with his Caddy, while his wife’s non-US car has had better service.

Both industries have been before the US congress, asking for help because of their poor financial status. The questions people are asking now are: Who is next to beg for a billion dollar bailout? Ackerman also acknowledged this, saying “Somebody heard that we’re giving out free money in Washington. They’re showing up from all over the place.” What industry has ruined itself by excessive greed and refusal to adopt new technologies? Could it be Hollywood, or perhaps the music labels?

The excesses of the movie industry are well known. Brad Pitt and others regularly command eight-figure fees, which quickly add up. There seems to be an increasing reliance on special effects and big names to carry films, rather than writing and acting talent. While this might increase the short-term draw at the box office, it is more than countered by a loss in repeated watchability, which cuts into later profits. A big name in a bad film is still going to be a bad film (BattleField Earth or Gigli), while an unknown in a good film, will be a good film, if the acting and production is up to it.

Of course, bad decision making is only part of the problem. Resistance to changing technology is another. The film industry famously resisted the VCR, claiming it would devastate their industry. The case went all the way to the US Supreme Court, where they narrowly affirmed the legality of home recording. Today, despite their resistance, the majority of income from a film is from pre-recorded content which is played on similar machines.

The music industry has also resisted technology, opposing innovations such as player-pianos, through commercial radio and file-sharing technology. Between discs infested with DRM, through stage-managed raids with convenient media coverage, to suing and threatening to sue ten-of-thousands of their best customers, they’ve shown not only their dislike of technology, but also bad decision-making.

Meanwhile, both the music and movie industry have been pleading poverty and blaming piracy. The infamous LEK study where piracy was blamed for everything was nothing more than a subtle attempt to quantify a theoretical loss. With no science or methodology behind it, it’s hard to take it seriously, but some congressional members have done just that. Now, as well as trying to push draconian anti-consumer legislation through congress, it could work to their advantage if they were to go cap-in-hand to politicians and say “we’re really hurting, and we could really do with some financial help.”

But will this happen? Just a year or two ago, some said that it seemed unlikely that the financial industry would take this path, so the film and music industries following this same road should come as no surprise. The trail has been blazed by others, and now they may find themselves following the advice of Dire Straits.

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

In September we reported that a Japanese man had been caught uploading the movie ‘Wanted’ before its Japanese theatrical release. Kazushi Hirata, a 33 year old from the city of Sendai, had painstakingly added Japanese subtitling to the movie, before uploading it to the Winny network. Following a complaint from Japan’s answer to the MPAA (Japan and International Motion Picture Copyright Association), Hirata was tracked down by the Kyoto Prefectural Police, the same department responsible for the 2004 arrest of Isamu Kaneko, the creator of the Winny software.

Less than a month after his September 20th arrest, November 11th saw Hirata pleading guilty to violating Japan’s copyright laws and faced the prospect of up to 10 years jail and a $95,000 fine. Yesterday the court came back with its sentencing decision.

Hirata was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for three years.

“The conviction sends an important message about the illegality of movie piracy,” said Jimca executive director Yasutaka Iiyama adding, “Respect for intellectual property rights is critical to Japan’s economy and cultural identity.”

The arrest of Mr Hirata is believed to be the first in Japan relating to the uploading of a pre-release movie.

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

Site administrator Alan Ellis, 25, was arrested immediately and eventually charged with conspiracy to defraud.

Five others, who were arrested months later, were accused of uploading music to others via the site. They were charged with copyright infringement offenses.

Yesterday, all six appeared at Teesside Crown Court in the UK. Ellis faced a charge of conspiracy to defraud, while the others – Steven Diprose, 21, from Staines, London, James Garner, 19, from Winsford, Cheshire, Michael Myers, 34, of Brough in North Humberside, Mark Tugwell, 19, from Caister near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk and Matthew Wyatt, 19, a student in London but originally from Stamford, Lincolnshire – all faced charges of copyright infringement.

Ellis did not enter a plea, and his case has been adjourned until 23 March 2009. The five uploaders entered pleas, and their hearing will continue at a later stage. All five uploaders were accused of making music albums available on OiNK, and according to insider information, at least four of them pleaded guilty.

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