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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6 Ways Savvy Internet Users Will Neutralize Hadopi

Free options

MP3 Search Engines

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

Direct Downloads

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

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

Streaming Music and Video

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

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

Premium options

Overseas MP3 Sites

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

Newsgroups

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

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

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

Anonymous VPN

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

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

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

And they would be absolutely right.

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

Downloading torrents files through Put.io is achieved with just a few clicks. All that it takes is pasting in a torrent url and Put.io takes care of the download through their connection. Once the download is finished, users can transfer it to their computer, or stream it directly from the remote server if it’s a video file.

The user interface and design of the site is intuitive and easy to use, but perhaps more importantly it was extremely fast during our tests and easily maxed out our connection. However, when more people join and the load on the servers goes up, there could be a degradation in performance.

So what’s the catch you might ask? For beta users the service is totally free, no strings attached. However, once the service goes out of beta it will require users to pay a monthly fee. One of the major downsides, however, is that the service currently requires an invite to join.

There’s some good news for BitTorrent enthusiasts, though. “Right now we’re in private beta. We’re testing our capacity and we need heavy torrent downloaders,” Put.io’s Hasan informed us, while generously offering some invites to curious TorrentFreak readers

We have 200 beta invites to give away, we lobbied for more but Hasan didn’t want to take that risk, expressing concern that the service could not handle the surge in load and bandwidth at this stage.

“I wish I could, but unfortunately we have to go slow with the invites. You can imagine that the load and bandwidth can go up quickly. I can go as high as 200. If it turns out, we can take the load, I’ll add more later,” Hasan said.

The lucky few can use t0rr3ntfr34k to get in. Others will have to try one of the alternatives, or wait before more invites arrive and check out the video below in the meantime.

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

Wanting to have this legal contradiction dealt with by his government, he confessed to anti-piracy group Antipiratgruppen that he had illegally broken the DRM on a hundred movies and TV shows. The full background to the case can be found here.

After Antipiratgruppen missed the deadline to respond, Henrik announced a couple of days ago he would report himself to the police. But now the group has responded, in a way that is possibly as confusing as the original law, although in a way that also makes perfect sense.

Their first paragraph notes that it is illegal to circumvent the “so-called effective technological measures” without the consent of rights holders – a reference to copy protection on a DVD. They also note that making a copy of the DVD in order to watch it on a media center (this issue Henrik is trying to draw attention to) is also illegal.

So far, so good. Now here’s the interesting part:

That said, the main purpose of the rule is to ensure against abuse of films and music being illegally copied and distributed further. The Association of Danish Videodistributors certainly have no interest in suing consumers who like you have purchased legitimate products – quite the contrary.

In a nutshell, Antipiratgruppen says that as long as people buy movies initially, they don’t mind them a taking digital copy for their own use, as long as there is no distribution to 3rd parties – despite both acts being equally illegal.

Commenting on the news, Henrik told TorrentFreak: “I’m glad that they will not prosecute me. But at the same time it’s still illegal, so …”

Henrik says that since this section of copyright law has no effect in the real world, it should simply be abolished so that people know where they stand, since other people in the future might take a different stance.

“Who is to say that if the anti-piracy group suddenly falls over a man with a 1000 films that they would not prosecute him, even though he has paid for his films? Once again: it is still illegal,” he told us.

Although Antipiratgruppen have responded promising not to prosecute, Henrik told TorrentFreak that he’s not going to rest here.

“Act (§ 75C) is not modified / removed yet. Only on the day where the Culture Minister said the law will be removed / changed will my goal be reached.”

Next week, Henrik will try to contact the Culture Minister, who thus far hasn’t been interested in doing much, but at least at this point must realize that there is something very wrong with the law.

The full response from Antipiratgruppen can be found here.

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

Today iiNet’s lawyers cross-examined representatives from 20th Century Fox, Disney, Warner and Paramount via video link.

After being accused earlier in the trial of having deals in place with BitTorrent Inc, ZDNet reports that Paramount admitted it had a deal with the company for it to prevent illegal copies of its movies being shared via its BitTorrent software. However, this seems more likely to be a filter applied to search results on the BitTorrent.com site, rather than any obstruction in the software itself. Any notion that BitTorrent Inc spied or spies on users of its software in order to restrict their activities would be a disaster for the company.

Paramount could not confirm if the deal prevented piracy or not but acknowledged that it ran from October 6 2006 until October 6 2008, and had now expired. Paramount had an option to extend it for a further year, but did not.

As mentioned in our earlier coverage, iiNet lawyers suggested that the publishing of studio logos (including that of Paramount) on the BitTorrent.com website could have caused some confusion for potential BitTorrent downloaders.

However, according to a report, Paramount could be set to lodge a formal complaint with BitTorrent Inc over what it described as “unauthorized use” of its logo. This development seems to be somewhat of a cheap shot by Paramount. Their logo has been on the BitTorrent.com site for a very long time (and remains there today) so the ‘revelation’ in court that it exists there should hardly come as a surprise – they were business partners after all.

iiNet lawyers put it to 20th Century Fox anti-piracy boss Ronald Wheeler that making material available online helped to reduce piracy. While he could not confirm that immediately, he did say that because content is available online, it counters the argument that the only way to obtain the content is illegally.

Warner representative David Kaplan confirmed that his company also had a deal with BitTorrent Inc but although he couldn’t be certain, he felt the deal had expired since the MPA hadn’t kept him updated about it.

iiNet lawyers also produced a document which was alleged to be license agreement between Warner and the defunct Wurld Media, to distribute content via P2P. While Kaplan admitted the deal was now dead, he confirmed the authenticity of the document.

A further interesting development came after AFACT chief Neil Gane admitted that his organization’s investigative techniques – hiring someone to pretend to be a regular iiNet customer in order to engage in file-sharing of copyright works with other iiNet customers – could be construed as copyright infringement in itself.

In last week’s court sessions, iiNet lawyers put it to Gane that AFACT could have been involved in condoning copyright infringement, referring to the actions mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Gane admitted that there would have been occasions where AFACT’s own investigators had undertaken an activity which had been described by iiNet lawyers as “an infringement of copyright”.

“And that’s something you will tolerate happening at your own premises?” said iiNet lawyer Richard Cobden.

“It’s an investigative technique,” Gane replied

The case continues.

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 first single from the album was “Shot in the Back of the Head” which is accompanied by a video directed by none other than David Lynch. However, instead of being forced to put their hands in their pockets to pay for the track, Moby released the track for free download directly from his site. Indeed, even though the album is released, anyone can still obtain that particular track for free, completely legally.

So of course, thousands and thousands of Moby fans have been downloading the track for free (just like many could do from file-sharing networks) and this has been hitting Moby financially.

Readers will be heartened to know that the above paragraph is nonsense. Moby is doing very well indeed from that track thank you very much, despite its ‘free’ status – or maybe because it’s free.

In an email to US music industry figure Bob Lefsetz, Moby revealed something of great interest;

“The album just came out and it would be #1 [in the] euro charts if not for michael jackson re-releases. So that’s good. But here’s something funny: the best selling itunes track is ’shot in the back of the head’. Why is that funny?”

“Because its the track we’ve been giving away for free for the last 2 months and that we’re still giving away for free. Odd.”

Do your part in making Moby even more successful by downloading his track “Shot in the Back of the Head” for free, here. Judging from the comments, Moby’s fans love his music and are very grateful indeed.

Free downloads don’t equal lost sales but actually increase them? What will they think of next?

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

On the issue of standards of evidence, all responses received 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. 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.

Just as a guide, here are some clear mistakes and ‘distortions’ in the submissions provided to the BERR, that we hope they have taken into account.

1 The estimated figures.

Estimated loss figures are commonplace, usually expressed as “in [year], [group] lost [amount] due to piracy”. However, in just about every case, such figures are estimated, based on a set of unlikely assumptions and figures which will maximize the claimed loss. In addition, no supporting data or the methodology used to determine the figure is ever given, even if requested. If the basis for determining the figure can not be clearly expressed, it should bring into question the validity of the claim made from it.

A prime example of the unreliability of these unsupported figures came in January 2008, when the MPAA admitted that at least one figure in their often-quoted LEK study was three times the intended figure (and who knows what the actual figure is). No independent determination of the accuracy of this revised figure can be made, as the data behind it still has not been published.

2 The echo-chamber

In one of the more curious aspects of the way the copyright industry conducts itself, companies are members of multiple groups. Sometimes these groups are a further part of other groups. For instance, ‘Television Against Piracy’ contains members from US studios. These same studios are members of the MPAA, that also filed a response. The MPA(A) is also a member of the ‘Alliance Against Intellectual Property Theft’ which filed the same brief as the British Video Association. These last two also have some of their members submit individual reports. The same is as true for the ISPs as for the rightsholder organizations. Counting responses from organizations that are represented multiple times, gives increased weight to their opinions in contrast to those that played fair and didn’t attempt to swamp the process with shell organizations like a two-bit tax-evader.

3 Redefinition of terms

Terms like “copyright theft” and “illicit P2P” are designed to give preconceptions to the reader, in much the same way the term ‘Intellectual Property’ has come to be used in recent times to encompass copyright patent and trademark law. The only time “copyright theft” can make sense, however, is for the copyright itself to be taken from its owner, rather that the right be infringed. Illicit P2P also does not exist, as the technology is legal, as is the use of it. It is only in certain circumstances that it is found to be in violation of the law, and then only after the specific case has been judged so via the judicial process. Similarly, the “graduated response” (apart from being illegal under European law) system promoted by several respondents should be more accurately termed ‘The Because We Say So response‘.

There are also technical redefinings of terms. One response (BVA/AAIPT) talks of 18,000 Nintendo Wii and 14,000 XBox ‘game files’. However, assuming the files were in the standard scene release format (multipart rars) at only 50 rars per game, that takes the Wii total down to 360, and XBox titles down to 280. Many games are split into more than 50 parts, dropping this down more. In this case, by redefining a segment of a file as a separate file, the impact of the statement can be vastly increased.

4 Illegal Activities

This should be a no-brainer. No activity is illegal until so decided, either in a court of law or by the accused admitting guilt on that particular occasion. Absent either of these, there is no illegality under the British system of presumption of innocence. The impetus for this consultation stems from the pleas to circumvent this basic system of justice by companies that want to gain rewards without any increased cost.

5 Technological filtering doesn’t work

As we saw first-hand with Comcast, attempts to disrupt a protocol can have unintended consequences. One of the respondents is a company that provides filtering systems, but the ineffectiveness of their system with the dominant P2P was described here a year ago. The filtering even of static streaming content using such systems has also taken a blow in the US with the ruling that such systems must consider context; something no technological system can do. The BBC response also underscored the futility of filtering based on file name, at the end of their contribution, where a screenshot shows a hit for Duffy, in a search for Dr Who.

6 Greater term of copyright requires greater expense for protection

With the worldwide continued copyright extensions over the past decades, the number of works that have to be protected will also increase. Thus the trade-off for increased royalty payments is the increased costs to protect these works generating the payments. In the same way that increasing a factory’s storage time of finished products requires a larger warehouse, the cost increase that comes from it is thus the responsibility of the person responsible for the increase, in this case the rights holders.

7 Rights holders are not creators

Throughout the submissions the assumption that “rights holders = creators” is often made. In some it is stated. However in very few circumstances are the rights holders actually the creative talent. In most cases they operate almost like a bank and a distribution center in one, providing financing and assistance to distribute the product, but not actually involved in the creative process itself. Were the “rights-holders” to cease, alternate sources of financing can and would be sought, as would different ways to distribute the finished product. While the quality of the product may not be the same, creativity will not come to a screeching halt and new methods to do similar things cheaply may be created – spurring innovation in that way.

8 These claims are not new

Many of the claims made are not new. With each new leap of technology the ‘creative industries’ make similar claims; the new technology will end the business and should be regulated, or outlawed, or control should be handed over. It has happened with the VCR, Cable-TV, Radio, even player pianos and the phonograph. Despite these regular (every 20 years or so) prophecies of doom, it has yet to pass. Usually common sense prevails, and the businesses adapt and flourish.

These eight points might be common sense to our regular readers, but the question will be if they have been considered at all by those responsible for the Digital Britain report. We shall shortly see.

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

This type of file-sharing is very effective – indeed, it’s what BitTorrent is all about. However, there are those who would prefer to stop or hinder such P2P traffic – certain ISPs take measures to identify BitTorrent protocol traffic and slow it down with a process known as ‘throttling’.

While Furk.net (update: the site had some XSS vulnerabilities but these are fixed nos according to the admin) can simply be used as a torrent meta-search engine to trawl other sites for .torrent files, to combat throttling (and privacy concerns) Furk bills part of its service as a ‘BitTorrent Proxy’. This means that instead of searching for a torrent file and downloading in the usual manner via the BitTorrent protocol, instead Furk itself joins the swarm in question and downloads the material directly to their own servers.

Once completed, users can simply download that material directly from Furk’s super-fast network using the HTTP protocol in their regular web browser. Identical to standard web traffic, HTTP generally isn’t throttled by ISPs, allowing the user to download more quickly than with throttled BitTorrent. In the less likely event that an ISP tries to slow down HTTP, downloads can be made from Furk using HTTPs.

“By default all links are HTTPs,” Furk admin told TorrentFreak. “It helps to avoid content filtering systems and increase the level of anonymity. Also for every link the user can choose an alternative link with a non-standard port.” This element of the service is only available to premium users at a few euros per month but free users can still have fun with Furk.

It’s also possible to upload your own files and videos to the service, but Furk has another much more interesting trick up its sleeve – and it’s available to non-premium users. Instead of just keeping the content on their servers for material requested by you, Furk keeps the content requested by everyone. This means that Furk has a growing database of material culled from torrent sites, but offered via direct and immediate HTTP download. A search for ‘aXXo’ shows hundreds of releases, mostly available for direct download. Think of it like Rapidshare, but with a BitTorrent backend.

“Speed for premium users is unlimited. All of the servers are on a 1Gps network and we have plenty of unused bandwidth,” Furk admin told TorrentFreak. “Free downloads are currently limited only by restricting the number of download sessions, so download managers can be used only with premium accounts.”

However, even with no premium account, some impressive speeds can be achieved. We managed decent transfers from The Netherlands, Russia and the US, before finally maxing out a 20mbit Hungarian connection. It remains to be seen if these speeds can be maintained once the masses start hitting the service – probably not, since there needs to be something to draw users to the premium service, but time will tell.

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

Of course, as far as the United States and its piracy watch-lists go, this is an unacceptable situation and one which needs to be changed as quickly as possible.

According to the United States, Spain has one of the worst file-sharing “problems” in the world. The US claims it is consistently among the top five worst countries in terms of overall downloads and that it regularly takes the top position for movie downloads per capita. The MPA(A), who can hardly be trusted to report unbiased stats, says movie downloads by Spanish citizens reached 350 million in 2008.

While video game publishers claim that 50 million games were downloaded illegally last year, it is the music industry that says it suffers most from file-sharing in Spain, claiming that users downloaded around 2 billion tracks in 2008, up 80% compared to 2007. This is blamed mainly on BitTorrent and eDonkey sharing, but there was also a reported increase in sharing via Rapidshare-like file-hosting sites. According to figures cited by the report, 67% of all Spanish Internet users download unauthorized content, raising to 81% in the under 24 years old group.

Of course, the Spanish authorities have taken action against various torrent and sharing sites in the past, but because of Spain’s laws, the prosecution has failed to gain any significant convictions – the admins, as in the case of Sharemula, simply walk. Under Spanish law there is no infringement and this situation, says the US, means that rights holders don’t have the weaponry to go after ‘infringers’. Obama wants to change all that.

The US charges that the Spanish government has done little “to change the widespread misperception in Spain that peer-to-peer file sharing is legal,” referring to the 2006 “decriminalization” notification from the Office of the Prosecutor-General as “problematic”.

Of course, no article on bringing in tougher restrictions on file-sharing would be complete without the obligatory calls for pirates to be disconnected, and the Special 301 Report doesn’t disappoint. The United States says that part of Spain’s “priority action” should include an agreement between ISPs and copyright holders to prevent infringing content being available on the Internet and should include “the immediate and effective implementation of graduated response [3 strikes] procedures.”

If the law doesn’t currently allow such action, the US advises Spain it should takes steps to change it, including rescinding the Chief Prosecutor’s May 2006 official instruction that effectively decriminalized file-sharing.

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.

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.

Now that things have settled down a little, we took the opportunity to ask one of the defendants some questions of our own. We spoke with Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde about the trial and the future of the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker.

TF: Before the trial started, you said that it was going to be a theater – Hollywood style. Looking back at recent weeks, did your predictions come true?

Peter: Yeah, some days it was a really weird show outside! A lot of stuff happened in secret too, and those events will probably come out in the documentary. It’s been great theater!

TF: Are you satisfied with how the trial played out? Do you still predict an EPIC WIN?

Peter: Right now, yes. I’m very happy about it and I still predict an EPIC WIN for sure. But you never know. We expect a win but we’re prepared for the worst case scenario, so that we don’t get too beaten up if that happens.

TF: During the trial, the prosecution was heavily criticized for their lack of knowledge about BitTorrent, and how people use it to transfer files. Would you agree with this?

Peter: Yeah. We actually presented our own video ‘how-to’ to the court during the final day, to make sure the jurors got the right knowledge on how it works. The prosecution has tried to show BitTorrent as something bad and suspicious and we wanted to show that it’s legitimate and has a broader use than just STEALING FILES FROM THE POOR COPYRIGHT LOBBY…

TF: A lot of people are worried about the future of The Pirate Bay. However, the trial seems to be against four individuals, not against the site/tracker. Worst case scenario: Is there a possibility that people will have to do without TPB in the future?

Peter: If TPB is not used in the future, it is because there’s a new technology available that makes TPB obsolete.

TF: Do you think there’s a future for BitTorrent as it is now, or do you expect that file-sharing will change in the future?

Peter: I think it will evolve of course, but BitTorrent is on the right path to stay relevant for a while. The problem with a decentralized tracking system is that there’s no way (right now) to keep spammers and IP-stealers away from the network, which one can do on TPB for instance. Media Defender was a good example of that, TPB could find their IPs and lock them away rapidly without having to tell the users to update files.

Good solutions like that might appear in the future for end users, but it’s still a long way off. BitTorrent as a technology will be used for the actual sharing, or at least the basic concept of BitTorrent.

TF: There has been a lot of trial coverage online, both by traditional press and bloggers. What are some of the positive and negative surprises?

Peter:There were no real surprises. The media coverage of TPB has been somewhat the same over the past years. There are no secrets surrounding TPB that could come out and harm us, which keeps it easy to maintain a good relationship with the media. I’m just happy that people take part in the discussion about the Internet’s future, which has been promoted to debate by this spectrial.

TF: We’ve heard rumors that Anakata traveled to Cambodia after the trial. Is he meeting King Kong there or is there another explanation?

Peter: I’m not sure if he’s in Cambodia – he travels a bit for a customer that he’s working with. But, I think he’s in Asia at least. And yeah, he’s probably drinking cider with King Kong one of these days.

TF: Finally, do you have any good advice for the judge while he’s reviewing the case?

Peter: Don’t trust the prosecution – they don’t know what they’re doing.

—

The verdict is due on April 17. Links to our previous Pirate Bay trial coverage can be found below.

Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11, Summary.

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

Now, in response to continued attacks against communities that offer subtitles, the prominent fansubbing group InSUBS has launched a campaign to show the anti-piracy groups and their movie and TV industry bosses that the people they target are avid consumers.

The campaign is called “Queremos Cultura” (translated “We Want Culture”) and is linked from the InSUBS site, which is not currently engaged in subbing activities, largely to avoid the same fate suffered by Legendas.tv in February.

Those running the campaign are asking fansubbers and those that use fansubs to upload pictures of their original DVD and Blu-Ray collections to this Flikr album to show that they are far from being thieves or criminals. On the contrary, they are enthusiastic consumers who pay their way. At the time of writing there are already 570+ photographs showcasing some pretty healthy collections totaling some 10,000 products – everyone is encouraged to upload their own.

This campaign is trying to show that the problem lies with Hollywood. In some countries, people have to wait months, sometimes even years, before their favorite TV-show or movie becomes available. Some of the most dedicated fans can’t be tortured this long – it’s unethical.

The campaign video is in Portuguese, but we’ve added our own ‘fansubs’ at the end of the post.

We could be killing, we could be stealing. But no. We choose to disseminate culture. The subtitles we make are not what makes DVD sales fall, it’s their abusive high prices.

Years to find out what happened with: The island people! Jack Bauer! Hiro Nakamura! Michael Scofield! True fans always try to buy the original products and many series owners got to know about these through the Internet. Today they are collectors.

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

The Directive, due to be voted on some time in the near future, will mainly be to the benefit of large record label, and not small artists and session players, as proponents claim. In a speech last month, though, Commissioner McCreevy countered that argument, saying “To that criticism can I say that the average annual pay-out might not appear significant to academic critics, but €2,000 (£1,760) extra per year is significant to an average session player.”

The reality though, is very different. Even EU backed studies have found significant downsides to any extension, with the only study supporting an extension coming from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) – the British music lobby group. Even Andrew Gowers, author of the independent Gowers Report into ‘intellectual property’ has recommended against an extension.

Thus the Open Rights Group has decided to try and educate MEPs. It will be holding a meeting with them, to try and bring attention to the problems and negative aspects of the directive. It has also created the following video to explain to those that can’t be there.

The meeting is free to attend, and will include people with experience in the industry. If you’re interested in attending, details are available here

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

The new device can play videos from several large streaming sites, including YouTube, Google Video and Metacafe. However, its true power comes from the built-in BitTorrent client. Millions of people use BitTorrent to download TV-shows every week, so there are a lot of potential customers out there.

‘Whenever’ and ‘wherever’ are two words that are often heard when people explain why they use BitTorrent, and Netgear cleverly acknowledges this with their new player. “It is ideal for those who are geographically displaced from their preferred television content, such as international sporting events and Bollywood productions,” is how Netgear’s marketing promotes it.

If Netgear is indeed hoping for BitTorrent users to embrace the device, most of the potential lies outside the US, where 90% of all the TV-torrent downloads take place. The main reason being that fans sometimes have to wait for weeks or even months before the show airs on TV in their country.

For those who have a large library of video files downloaded already, the Internet TV Player also supports external USB drives. Plug it in, and all your videos will be available on your TV instantly, easy as that. Netgear expects that the Internet TV Player (ITV2000), priced at $200, will be available in stores early Summer 2009.

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

In 2008 the site passed several milestones, and in December Mininova broke a new record of 44.7 million unique visitors in one month. More users download more torrents, and just about every three to four months the site added another million torrent downloads to its counter. Today, just a few days into 2009, Mininova is close to recording the 7 billionth download, a double up compared to a year ago.

Mininova co-founder Niek told TorrentFreak that he expects this growth to continue in the new year. “Traffic is still growing according to Quantcast and Google Analytics. Unless something drastically changes, I see no reason why this will be different in 2009,” he commented.

Over the past months we’ve reported on the trend of more artists and publishers taking BitTorrent seriously, and Niek has noticed the same. “That’s definitely true,” he said. “We have almost reached the point of 1000 active CD publishers. We expect that free content distribution will play an increasingly important role in the music and video industry during the coming year.”

While existing Internet users are turning to BitTorrent at an increasing rate, most growth can be expected from rapidly developing countries such as India. With only 5 million broadband Internet subscribers, India is a relatively small player. However, the government plans to increase this number to 50 million by 2012, a 1000% increase, and we expect that many of them will be eager to try BitTorrent.

The exponential growth reported by Mininova and other torrent sites shows us that the BitTorrent hype is far from over. ISPs should brace themselves.

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

Nevertheless, following an investigation by UK Trading Standards, the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) and the police, the admin was arrested. At the time, FACT claimed that he was detained due to “offenses relating to the facilitation of copyright infringement on the Internet.” Except there was a problem.

There is no criminal offense of ‘facilitation of copyright infringement’ under English law. There would have been at least a civil offense if TV-Links had hosted the videos themselves, but they did not. Sites like YouTube and Dailymotion did, but the police or anti-piracy groups didn’t go after these giants. Indeed, the police themselves seemed to disagree with FACT’s reasoning for the raid, saying that the admin had been arrested for “supplying property with a registered trade mark without permission.”

…which raised another problem. The Trade Marks Act 1994 (specifically section 92) was designed to deal with physical, real-world counterfeit goods. Supplying links, if anything, could only be considered a service – definitely not a sale of physical goods. Getting a conviction on these grounds would be tricky, if not impossible. Considering the problems highlighted above, it’s no surprise that the TV-Links case has disappeared from the news radar.

TorrentFreak tracked down the now ex-admin of the site, 26 year-old Dave Rock, for the lowdown on this important case which seems to ask two questions: Can someone be held responsible when 3rd parties merely link to copyright works that are hosted by someone else, and furthermore, does this constitute a criminal offense under an act designed to protect physical goods?

It all starts on the morning of 18th October, just five days before the police raided OiNK. Dave had some unwanted visitors. At 06:20, two police officers, three FACT members, and around five Trading Standards officials descended on Dave’s home. Fortunately for him, in his case the media wasn’t tipped off, so there were no photographers and reporters outside his house. Alan Ellis of OiNK was not so lucky.

“The police and Trading Standards officers were always polite and professional, I wasn’t man handled like you see with the over acting police on the TV,” Dave told us. “I was arrested as soon as I opened the door, not cuffed and was allowed to grab a few bits, like my wallet and phone. They seized my laptop, my old PC and annoyingly, my girlfriends PC too, along with random CDs and four or five old hard drives, ranging between 8GB to 15gb.”

When we asked Dave what was on the search warrant, he said: “They ticked Video Recording Act 1984 – Section 16A and Trade Marks Act 1994 – Section 93. But, thinking about some of the questions during the interview I got the impression they were looking for DVD copying kit or they hoped to find this type of thing. FACT’s website always boasts about DVD pirate busts.”

The police officers then took Dave to the station where he was questioned. Not by the police, but by people from Trading Standards and FACT, a well known private anti-piracy company-come-lobby group. Quite why a private company is allowed to directly question someone in a criminal case that they may wish to prosecute privately is another question, and one that many people will find unpalatable.

It seemed that both outfits were disappointed, they must have expected more than just hyperlinks. In common with thousands of forums around the world, Dave didn’t know any of the TV-Links staff personally, and obviously didn’t know anything about the users. Almost 75% of the site’s visitors came from China, 10% from the US and next popular was the UK, at just 3.8%. Hardly a threat to Great Britain Ltd, but of course the implication was that Dave was making money. The reality was that he was receiving around $2 to $5 per day in donations from random site users, which he used to cover the server costs.

After six hours, Dave was released – without being charged and with no restrictions. Now, well over a year later, not much has changed. For the last 6 months or so, Dave has had no contact with the police and no contact through his lawyer with FACT or (Gloucester) Trading Standards. In fact, GTS has no further involvement in the case and has deferred to FACT, just in case they want to make a private prosecution. But, everything has gone very quiet.

TorrentFreak asked Dave if it had ever been raised that he was arrested under laws ill-placed to deal with the situation. He told us, “When it comes to law there isn’t really any point arguing after the point, you need to concentrate on identifying [in this case] how FACT will interpret the current law and, if/when this ends up in court, how they will use it to their advantage.”

Until then, it just seems like a waiting game. “I guess you could call it being in limbo, but recently I haven’t given it much thought, I’m just getting on with my life,” Dave told us. “The only thing that’s a little annoying is that FACT still have all the gear seized by GTS, apparently they’ve been given it for “forensic analysis”. Do I hear you cry ‘breach of Data Protection Act‘, for passing private data to a private company? Again this is something we are still looking into.”

So how on earth did TV-Links end up on the radar in the first place? Why was such significance put on the site and why did the response include a raid with so many people in attendance from the police, government trading standards and Hollywood-funded private company FACT?

“One thing I’d like to mention, Gloucester Trading Standards were always polite and professional,” said Dave. “In my eyes they were led up the garden path by FACT. My personal opinion is that Gloucester Trading Standards were lead to believe I was copying and selling DVDs. But, when they entered my home they only found crappy old PC gear, Laptop and no DVDs, and lost all interest – if they were ever interested in the first place.”

Despite the lack of interest and indeed grounds for a conviction, it doesn’t change the fact that TV-Links is gone as a result of the above actions. Why did it even find a place in people’s lives in the first instance? Dave believes it’s down to sheer lack of choice. “TV-Links and other linking sites are only around because the big media companies haven’t supplied the viewing public with any viable alternatives, at least until recently in the UK. The BBC iPlayer is very good, but it’s a shame it’s only 7 days of TV.”

So, with the authorities backing away, what are the chances of TV-Links making a comeback? “Running the site did take up all of my free time, it was good fun running it but I’m happy I now have my evenings and weekends free,” Dave told us. He has no intention of bringing the site back, particularly since a TV-Links.co.uk replacement site popped up many months ago at TV-Links.ws.

Finally, when sites are busted, many people are interested in exactly how the owners were tracked down by the authorities. With TV-Links, the techniques weren’t mysterious at all. They didn’t need to be. The reason why it was so easy is the very reason Dave felt free to run the site in the first place:

“To be honest I didn’t really attempt to hide my ID, as under UK Law linking to another site isn’t illegal, so I didn’t see the need.”

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

Mininova co-founder Niek told TorrentFreak that Hyper MP is a great alternative to pre and post-roll ads. If it proves successful, there will be more releases on Mininova with these new ads, and Niek said that these new releases might even include some blockbuster movies.

The new advertising technology is yet another great feature to convince premium content producers to publish their work on Mininova’s content distribution platform, which was launched last year. With Mininova’s distribution platform, the torrent files are seeded by Mininova, all the publisher has to do is upload the files. It is a very simple process.

Earlier this year, CBC used Mininova to distribute one of their TV-shows. Tessa Sproule, head of CBC’s Digital Programming told TorrentFreak at the time: “I believe BitTorrent is a terrific distribution technology and absolutely something we as a public broadcaster should be experimenting with.”

Hundreds of premium publishers have already signed up at Mininova. With the new advertising opportunities, more TV and movie studios might be interested in releasing their shows and movies on BitTorrent, and what better way to get exposure than with Mininova, one of the world’s most popular sites.

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

The latest development is one that file-sharing commentators have quietly been expecting. While some 40-60% of those threatened over video game sharing in the UK appear to pay up, there are other ways of increasing this amount substantially via social leverage. Unsurprisingly, Davenport Lyons are now going down this road which is likely maximize compliance rates.

According to recipients of fresh letters this weekend, the lawyers have now expanded into movie ‘protection’ – a gay hardcore porn movie to be precise. Set on a farm in the former Czechoslovakia, Gestapo officers apparently hand out ‘forced’ punishment in ‘Army Fuckers‘, a 2006 movie originally released by Dutch porn outfit Dream Logistics BV, on the ‘Eurocreme‘ label.

Strangely, however, Dream Logistics BV aren’t the rights holder anymore, or the ones that hired Davenport Lyons. It appears the new rights holder is German anti-piracy company DigiProtect, who managed to get this High Court order for disclosure of alleged file-sharer’s identities, based on evidence provided by lesser-known anti-piracy tracking company DigiRights Solution, of Darmstadt, Germany. Indeed, DigiRights Solution GmbH appear to have no obvious Internet presence.

Davenport Lyons are demanding £500 compensation, plus the costs from the ISP for disclosing the alleged infringer’s personal details. Recipients of the letter are given 21 days to pay up and are threatened with huge court costs and damages if they don’t, which is no different to all the other threats made by Davenport on other media they ‘protect’. It is worth noting that of a claimed 25,000 threats of legal action, no more than half a dozen have gone to court and of those, none were contested, meaning that Davenport Lyons won default judgments on them all. There is no evidence to suggest that anyone has ever contested a case with many people simply refusing to pay up.

Those accused and deciding to settle are asked to sign an undertaking that they will never infringe copyright on any media owned by DigiProtect in the future, which might be easier than you think – considering the number of titles they own the rights to. As previously pointed out by P2P-Blog, DigiProtect seem to be acquiring the ‘P2P Rights’ to many titles (including those of US porn company ‘Evil Angel’) and gathering their money via P2P tracking and subsequent legal threats.

However, most worrying is the leaked contract between DigiProtect and Evil Angel, as it contains the following paragraph, which one would believe applies to these UK cases too:

To achieve the purpose outlined in clause 1, LICENSOR grants DIGIPROTECT the exclusive right to make the movies listed in Appendix 1 worldwide available to the public via remote computer networks, so-called peer-2-peer and internet file sharing networks such as e-Donkey, Kazaa, Bitorrent, etc. for the duration of this agreement

This destroys claims that these actions are for strict anti-piracy purposes, this is a clearly a money-making operation, designed from the ground-up.

Since most people will want to avoid lining the pockets of DigiProtect and friends, here is a list of titles that include those that appear to be now owned by DigiProtect and ripe for IP harvesting.

Although not DigiProtect titles, the eagle-eyed reader will notice the inclusion on this list of Dream Pinball 3D, Colin McRae Rally and Call of Juarez – all titles targeted by Davenport Lyons. According to the list, DigiProtect also owns the rights to Atari’s dire ‘Alone in the Dark 5′.

Of course, we live in a world that has become much more liberal in recent years, so the stigma attached to porn of all flavors has diminished significantly. However, the damage that will be done to a family will be considerable if someone is incorrectly accused of sharing porn that doesn’t ‘fit’ the acceptance levels in that household.

There is a firestorm coming, there can be little doubt, and a simple apology from Davenport Lyons following an incorrect accusation won’t be enough.

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