Throw a roadblock out and a new route is recalculated. So it is with DNS. Add blocks in the ICANN systems, and people work their way around them.

The most common way until now has been a browser plugin, like MAFIAAFire, but alternate DNS systems are starting to become more popular. One of those, OpenNIC, is looking to capitalise on that with its new .pirate TLD (top level domain).

Registration takes just minutes, and then your new .pirate domain will be accessible by anyone using one of OpenNIC’s many DNS servers. That’s the big drawback at present.

However, the OpenNIC project is not just limited to .pirate (or dotPirate, as they’ve called it). They also have .geek, .oss (as in open source software) and .parody, among others.

The man behind the dotPirate project is Travis McCrea, Deputy Leader of the Canadian Pirate Party.

“While the world gets smaller and more connected through advancements of the Internet and web technology, every day our ability to have a free flow of information becomes more and more threatened by countries who wish to censor and control the communication platform which brings us all together,” McCrea told TorrentFreak.

“This is something that we cannot let happen, and why the dotPirate Foundation, … is proud to announce the launch of the new Top Level Domain (TLD) .pirate on the OpenNIC root system.”

To prevent abuse, some of the more popular domains have already been reserved (including torrentfreak.pirate and thepiratebay.pirate). As an extra bonus, people using blockaid.me for their DNS will already be able to access .pirate domains – they added support for OpenNIC over the weekend.

For those using OpenDNS, the provider announced a new service for Windows users last week. DNSCrypt, previously only available for Mac OSX and Linux, is a technology that encrypts all DNS traffic between an Internet user and the OpenDNS service. It can be downloaded here.

.Pirate domains can be registered for free at dotpirate.me.

Source: .Pirate Domains Now Available Through OpenNic

The solicitor at the center of that lawfirm, Andrew Crossley, was both fined and suspended from practicing law, which seemed to put a hold on similar cases.

However, it didn’t dissuade everyone. Yesterday, the UK’s High Court approved a case involving UK pornographer Ben Dover (real name Lyndsay Honey) and his company Golden Eye International. Now, ISP O2 will have to release the details of up to 9000+ subscribers listed in the document for Dover and Golden Eye. The precise number is unclear, as other companies that attempted to send letters through Golden Eye were denied the opportunity.

It’s success at last for the pornographer, as he’s had several similar cases thrown out in the past including a partnership with 170-year-old law firm Tilly Baily Irvine which ended in sanctions last year.

This claim process started 6 months ago, and with O2 stating they would not contest the case. Chief Master Weingarten, in response,  suggested that Consumer Focus (a government funded body looking after consumer rights) represent the IP addresses – the intended defendants – in court instead, a role Consumer Focus accepted.

Despite a strong defense, including pointing out all the issues with these kinds of actions, Weingarten approved the order, but with conditions. In perhaps a first for this sort of litigation, the court will be supervising the content of letters sent out to the alleged infringers, partly because of the ACS:law debacle.

In particular, the one-sided nature of the letters – only indicating the consequences should the alleged infringer lose – was not deemed appropriate, being indicative of bullying. Instead consequences should they successfully defend themselves should also be included.

Yet the most important part of the ruling is near the end, and might stop this practice once and for all; blanket fees to “make it all go away” are not acceptable.

137.   Fifthly, I think that Mr Becker’s response in his second witness statement to the point made by counsel for Consumer Focus referred to in sub-paragraph 60(v) above is telling:

“… it assumes that £700 will be successfully obtained from each of the 9000, when that is plainly wrong. In fact, it is likely that only a small proportion will result in a successfully obtained payment of any sum.”

This comes quite close to an admission that the figure of £700 has been selected so as to maximise the revenue obtained from the letters of claim, rather than as a realistic estimate of the damages recoverable by the relevant Claimant from each Intended Defendant. In any event, that is the inference I draw in the light of the matters discussed above and in the absence of any disclosure of the information referred to in paragraph 88 above.

138.   Accordingly, I do not consider that the Claimants are justified in sending letters of claim to every Intended Defendant demanding the payment of £700. What the Claimants ought to do is to proceed in the conventional manner, that is to say, to require the Intended Defendants who do not dispute liability to disclose such information as they are able to provide as to the extent to which they have engaged in P2P filesharing of the relevant Claimants’ copyright works. In my view it would be acceptable for the Claimants to indicate that they are prepared to accept a lump sum in settlement of their claims, including the request for disclosure, but not to specify a figure in the initial letter. The settlement sum should be individually negotiated with each Intended Defendant.

No more fee demands. Instead they can only state that they will accept a lump sum payment as settlement, to be negotiated if the accused accept liability. Otherwise, it will be down to the courts. It also seems that after many cases, Chief Master Weingarten has understood that these cases are about profits, not protecting rights. Very little money and a lot of grief was the prediction we highlighted earlier this month, and that seems to be the case.

Meanwhile, up to 9124 households are going to get a letter through their door talking about the porn they’ve allegedly downloaded. Let’s just hope that the tracking software, claimed to be ‘forensically accurate’ (huh?) does better than in times past, or there’s going to be a lot of needlessly embarrassed families, and unnecessary family strife when the postman calls.

Source: Mass BitTorrent Lawsuits Return to the UK

Let’s take a look at two of these stories that surfaced recently, starting with the BBC.

When the BBC reported on the riots in London, it frequently used pictures that were shared by Twitter users witnessing the events. This wouldn’t be that bad as the BBC would at least credit the people who took the pictures. Yet, in its reporting, the BBC completely failed to attribute any of the images it used, instead attributing them to Twitter.

When a complaint was made, the first response back included the following outrageous statement:

I understand you were unhappy that pictures from Twitter are used on BBC programmes as you feel it may be a breach of copyright. Twitter is a social network platform which is available to most people who have a computer and therefore any content on it is not subject to the same copyright laws as it is already in the public domain.  The BBC is aware of copyright issues and is careful to abide by these laws. (emphasis added)

Everyone reading this knows that to be untrue and the BBC did too, as Chris Hamilton (BBC News Social Media Editor) later admitted.

It’s not the position of BBC News, he said, adding that that the BBC tries to clear photos before using them but if there are time constraints that may not be possible. Unfortunately, UK law doesn’t allow fair dealing exceptions for this at present. So time constraints or not, it’s still a copyright violation.

And the BBC is not the only major news outfit to bend the copyright rules this month, the Daily Mail has been at it as well. This time, though, they probably picked the worst target possible, the wife of OpenRightsGroup founder and noted blogger Cory Doctorow.

In reporting on a story about Gap and their anorexic lines of jeans, the Daily Mail contacted Doctorow’s wife, Alice Taylor, asking for permission to use her work. She then offered the photos in exchange for £250 to a charity of her choice but the Mail declined this offer as ‘too expensive’.

Instead of buying it The Mail simply lifted the picture from the Washington Post, to whom Taylor had licensed it for use on their own site.

Only after numerous emails and an outraged crowd of commenters the newspaper promised to send a £1000 donation to the OpenRightsGroup and another £1000 to a charity dealing with eating disorders. We’ll wait to see if that happens.

This isn’t an isolated incident though. The net is awash with cases of the Daily Mail infringing copyright, and one photo agency is even suing them for more than £1M in damages.

The Digital Economy Act could have made a big difference here. Under the Act, after a certain number of accusations a website could have been taken offline. Thankfully, that’s now been taken out of consideration, but how much of that was down to judicial proportionality and feasibility, and how much was down to pressure from groups like the BBC and the Daily Mail (who belatedly realised that a major aspect of their business could be quite easily curtailed by the legislation) remains unclear.

The BBC is certainly no innocent in this, as it repeatedly pushed for strong punishments for copyright violators, even noting in some consultations that even more needs to be done than is being proposed. And who can forget the piece on a prime time BBC show, where they ‘reported‘ on a study, that we had poked major holes in weeks earlier, and yet had only ‘Industry’ participants. A complaint to the BBC had the response that it was “balanced”.

The issue is that few individuals can afford to pay for lawyers to file a copyright lawsuit, especially against large media companies such as the BBC. In effect, current copyright law is a tool for the rich allowing major companies to infringe frequently for commercial gain, yet face little sanction.

It would seem that in the end, we’re left with one question. Is copyright just for the Big Guys?

Source: Is Copyright Only For the Big Guys?

There are editorials in mainstream newspapers that say “Such theft costs the copyright- or trademark-holders billions of dollars each year.”

Even Vice President Biden said last year that “Piracy is theft, clean and simple, it’s smash and grab.” But you’d think a long-time lawyer and member of the Senate Judiciary would know to read the law.

The fact is that if copyright infringement was theft, then it would be treated as theft, dealt with as theft, and ‘copyright infringement’ wouldn’t exist at all. Nevertheless, the claims are often made. We’ve dealt with this topic before three years ago, focusing on UK law. So let’s take an example of a US case and see what would happen if it were tried as theft, instead of copyright infringement. The most obvious case is that of the RIAA against Jammie Thomas.

Civil trial

We all know the process. A John Doe suit is filed (over 200,000 of them in the US so far), usually amalgamated into a group for easy processing (although it is legality questionable). This then goes to discovery, where the identity is uncovered. At this point the suit is dropped and a direct appeal for ‘settlement‘ is made. If no settlement is reached then the civil lawsuit process can be started.

In the Thomas case the civil lawsuit was filed April 2006, and has now gone on for several years; the latest activity just this last week. Civil law (17 U.S.C. § 504) provides for both actual damages AND statutory damages from $200 to $30,000 for non-willful infringement and $750-$150,000 for wilful infringement – per infringement. In three trials, juries have set the per-track damages figure for Thomas-Rasset at $9,250, $80,000 and $62,500 while the courts have twice reduced it to $2,250 per track, which the RIAA is appealing, AGAIN.

The case has now been ongoing for over 5 years, not counting the original John Doe complaint, and it has occupied hundreds if not thousands of man-hours defending it. These hours cost money, and in a civil case that means finding a lawyer willing to take it on pro bono.

At first, Thomas-Rasset retained Brian Toder as her attorney, and later switched to Kiwi Camara. The much shorter Capitol v Foster case had attorney costs of over $68,000 awarded after the RIAA dropped the case, while Atlantic v Anderson (dropped by the RIAA after 3 years) ended up with over $100,000 in costs awarded by the court.

As with all such cases the verdict is based on ‘balance of the probabilities’ or ‘preponderance of the evidence’. Quite a contrast to a criminal case.

Criminal Trial

Were copyright infringement is ‘stealing’, this would be the process Thomas-Rasset would undergo.

An investigation would be made by the police (rather than a private company, hired by the complainant). As infringement is ‘theft’ she would be dealt with under Minnesota state law, specifically Minnesota Statute §609.52. She would be arrested, charged, and taken to court. If she could not afford a lawyer, one would be provided for her. Odds are, she would be dealt with in a matter of weeks, if not days.

The theft statute values goods at the cost to buy, so the 24 tracks would each be valued at $0.99 – the cost on iTunes – for a total of $23.76. If we take the worst case scenario though, and assume a whole CD per track at $20 per CD, that still brings the total value of the theft to $480. As the value is below $500, the maximum penalty available is stipulated as follows:

In all other cases where the value of the property or services stolen is $500 or less, to imprisonment for not more than 90 days or to payment of a fine of not more than $1,000, or both.

The trial would be judged, not on ‘balance of the probabilities’ as with a civil trial, but ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. Based on the evidence submitted in the trials so far, such a case would fail, as Ms Thomas-Rassett has never been proved to be personally responsible, only her connection and computer.

That means?

Of course, if it were just a choice of a civil suit or a criminal theft trial, then it’s clear why a civil trial is prefered, even if it is a money sink. Yet, there’s one last obstacle: The Supreme Court of the US.

In 1985, the Court ruled in Dowling v United States that copyright infringement is not theft, even when dealing with physical objects, such as vinyl records.

While industry bodies might still want to claim it’s still theft there is one simple fact that’s clear. In treating it as theft the benefit would be to the alleged infringer. A higher evidence standard, an independent investigation, legal counsel provided free for the alleged infringer, and vastly smaller penalties.

The infringement=theft argument has only one thing going for it, and that’s its emotional impact. In reality, it’s the very LAST thing they want, which is why new laws, like Protect IP and others have been pushed for many years. And again, we reiterate that we’ve dealt with the US here, laws for other countries are different, as we’ve seen twice in the past week  in Sweden, yet it’s still copyright infringement there, not theft.

If you’re confused about it still, maybe this song will help you tell the difference.

Source: Copyright Infringement and Theft – The Difference

The Act was pushed through by Lord Mandelson, then Secretary of State (SoS) for Business, reportedly after visiting Dreamworks founder David Geffen at a villa in Corfu on 7 August 2009.

It turns out that Lord Mandelson’s protestations, that the meeting had nothing to do with his support for the initial Bill, were true.

Just released documents show that Mandelson had made his mind up before that, following meetings several weeks earlier with head of Universal Music, Lucian Grainge.

If that doesn’t sound so bad, keep in mind that at this point Mandelson’s department was conducting a public consultation on this very topic, with 2 months still to go.

Documents released from Lord Mandelson’s office this week under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that this was a waste of time, and that almost nothing any participant could have said would have made a difference.

Notes from the July 2nd 2009 meeting show Grainge stating that notices will not work, which users have been happy to verify, and that “industries are being decimated by illegal file sharing”, an odd position to take since the British Phonographic industry has noted singles sales growing by at least 30% annually for the 4 years prior to this, and album sales only slightly down on their pre-Napster figures.

They might be forgiven for this mistake, unless someone had actually pointed out the sales figures in a consultation response, which someone did, although not until the end of the consultation period, in late September, two months after the decisions had been made.

In fact, the timetable released shows that the day after meeting with Grainge, Mandelson looked to force regulator OFCOM to go straight to ‘technical measures’ (slowdowns and disconnections), followed a week later by advice that judging the effectiveness of notices wasn’t needed, based purely on the (false) claims of a music industry CEO.

16 June 2009
Final Digital Britain Report produced
02 July 2009
SoS meeting with Lucian Grainge of Universal. SoS asked for advice on options exploring whether Digital Britain proposals on peer to peer file sharing will go quickly enough and far enough.
03 July 2009
Advice to Lord Carter (copied to SoS and DCMS) on possibility of SoS having a power to direct Ofcom to go directly to introduction of technical measures.
07 July 2009
Advice (through Lord Carter) recommending that the “power to direct” process should be adopted as preferred route (rather than Ofcom decision)
09 July 2009
Letter received from Universal stating :
* Digital Britain’s two proposals: Ofcom’s letters to file-sharers and the ability for music companies to prosecute persistent offenders are not enough on their own.
* Government must start planning for step 3 now – a statutory obligation on ISPs to crack down on persistent file-sharers by cutting bandwidth and suspending and blacklisting their accounts. This is outlined in Digital Britain but not due to be implemented for years. It is essential that this power is included in the Digital Economy Bill”
10 July 2009
Advice (through Lord Carter) on removing reliance on “trigger” mechanism to judge the efficacy of initial obligations.
13 July 2009
E-mail sent to officials stating: The Secretary of State has seen the letter from Lucian Grainge and commented: “I think we should examine, including step 3 power in Bill. What is Stephen Carter’s view? Officials need to meet and discuss asap as Lucian suggests”.

Geoffrey Norris begins series of meetings with key stakeholders to canvass views.

Such flagrant disregard for public opinion is not all that uncommon, but to do so in the middle of a public consultation is a very questionable practice

One consultation respondent told TorrentFreak: “As someone who went to considerable effort to submit a rational and evidence-based response to the consultation on these issues, I am disappointed, although not surprised, to see that the outcome was predetermined.” The UK Pirate Party is a little more scathing.

“These documents show how outrageously complicit everyone from the entertainment industry, politicians and unions were in framing the Digital Economy Act,” PPUK Chair Loz Kaye told TorrentFreak.

“Its most controversial aspect – suspending people from the Internet – was already sorted out in July 2009. It appears that the consultation was just for show, and the lobbyists got all they asked for. There are now serious questions to be asked of successive governments’ relations to groups like Universal Music and the BPI.”

As for the Geffen issue, while it is unlikely that claims that the topic never came up are true, there can be no doubt that Mandelson was not ‘recruited’ then, but a month earlier. A fact he teased with in his denial, which emphasised that “… work on this was already well in hand before the SoS’s [Mandelson's] holiday.”

—

Many thanks to Philippe Bradley and the Open Rights Group for persevering and getting these documents made public.

Source: Digital Economy Act: A Foregone Conclusion?

Making it even harder is the reality that laws tend to lag about a decade behind technology. It took 10 years for the legality of the video cassette to be decided, and even now new laws are being written to deal with P2P, a decade after BitTorrent was first debuted.

While these two technologies have caused problems for copyright owners, by disrupting the status-quo around distribution, the incredibly fast growth in both computing power and storage could soon lead to a fundamental shake-up in copyright.

As it stands in US law (and remember, US law rules throughout the world,  even if it’s legal, or you’ve not been there in decades) the creator of a picture is the copyright holder. Even if you drop the resolution, or reduce the number of colours to simpler shades, it is still considered by many to be under the original copyright.

So, what if you could create every possible picture? What if you took a fairly low resolution (say 500×500) and a reasonably low colour mix (say 256 colours) and tried to create every single image? What then would be the state of copyright? It’s the visual equivalent of the infinite monkey theorem.

If you could do it, then the project would own all the copyrights, to every image not already copyrighted. Furthermore, since it’s an independent creation with no outside reference to draw upon, works and images similar to those already copyrighted are not infringing.

There is that word though – ‘if‘. 500×500 with 256 colours might seem like a small, grainy picture now, but it’s a massive field of data. 250,000 pixels, each with 256 possible shades comes to 9.802 *10⁶⁰²⁰⁵⁹ and that’s a large number; 9 with six hundred thousand zeros after it!

“You would pretty much need a quantum computer and massive storage space for this to become even slightly feasible,” says Stephen Brooks, head of the Muon1 DPAD project based at the RAL near Oxford.

The problem is clear. At present the distributed.net RC5-72 brute force effort has been going on for 8½ years, and is only 1.7% done.

“Creating an image is faster than cracking an RC5 key but not that much, and there’s still space issues,” says Brooks. “You could easily fill 1Gb per hour, per user.”

However, while it’s not feasible now, 20 years down the line it may well be possible. Already some strong progress has been made towards quantum computing and with technological progress as rapid as ever in this field, it’s a question of sooner, rather than later.

In a very real sense, technology might kill copyright in our lifetime.

Source: Could Quantum Computing Kill Copyright?

The obvious intent was clear – to prevent groups which have the promotion of criminal acts at their core, such as the Pedophile Party, the Kill-all-Jews Collective, or Kidnappers Anonymous – but these are unambiguous terms.

When it comes to the term “Pirate” then there are increasingly two meanings. The first is that of the ‘classic buccaneer’ as famously portrayed by Johnny Depp, and often found acting off the east coast of Africa.

The second is a label more often thrown at someone accused (often wrongly) of sharing a data file.

However, the Russian Government clearly hasn’t heard of the second definition, which is odd when you consider that events surrounding sites like Allofmp3.com became an international issue for them a few years back.

As a result of this name misconception, the name Pirate Party was rejected. Furthermore, the party didn’t get all the formal notices from the Justice Ministry which would enable them to deal with the rest of the paperwork. So, in an attempt to move things on, they sued, and earlier this month, according to the Russian Pirate Party, the Judge ruled that the March rejection counts as the missing paperwork, and they should find another name.

The current frontrunner is Bez nazvaniya (“unnamed”) but other options include “Pirrate Party of Russia” and “Pira7e Party of Russia” according to a blog post by chairman Pavel Rassudov, which ends with the following plea:

I would like to conclude with stating that our principles, ideas and our website remain unchanged. I ask the public, journalists and all reasonable people to continue calling us “Pirate Party of Russia”

Fine by us, Pavel….

Source: Judge: Pirate Party Name-Ban Decision Stands

The Russian Justice Ministry has turned down the Russian Pirate Party for registration because it says “piracy is an attack on sea of river craft, which is a criminal offense,” according to the Moscow Times. The Ministry also says that the name implies that members are all criminals serving prison sentences thus violating Federal law

While that accusation has been leveled before (by a UK member of the Commons, during the Digital Economy Bill debate), then it was only at Rick Falkvinge, then party chairman and now occasional TorrentFreak columnist, also the founder of the Pirate Party movement back in 2006.

Understandably, the Pirate Party is upset, and has filed a protest at Zamoskvoretsky court in Moscow. ”Refusal to register a ‘Pirate Party of Russia’ offends 15,000 of the party members whom the Russian Ministry of Justice has called criminals. We are going to appeal the Justice Ministry’s decision in court,” says party chairman Paul Rassudov.

Lola Voronina, the Chief Administrative officer of PPI, and also a PP-Ru member told TorrentFreak: “The government doesn’t want any new parties to be registered – there isn’t much time left until the elections. So they are trying to find some reasons like this to decline registration.” When asked about the prospects of the challenge, Voronina told us: “We don’t know. But we definitely need to try!”

“The Russian Ministry of Justice made a curious mistake,” she continues. “The name, ‘Pirate Party of Russia’ reflects an ideology accepted worldwide. We are not a party of pirates attacking sea or river vessels for the appropriation of other people’s property. Could they regard two European deputies from Sweden’s Pirate Party and many other pirate parties across the globe as criminals?”

Of course, democracy in Russia is contentious. Back in October, former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev warned of problems in Russia’s democracy, accusing Prime Minister Putin of attempts to stay in power. Meanwhile the Democracy Index has them at 107, almost in the “Authoritarian regime” grouping.

Source: Russia Refuses to Recognize Pirate Party, Because of Its Name

While RapidShare has gone on the offensive, describing claims in anti-piracy-funded studies as ‘defamation’, MegaUpload has been more direct. A few days ago the company responded to accusations the RIAA and MPAA made about the facilitation of copyright infringement, calling them “grotesquely overblown allegations.”

While all of this was going on a separate conflict was brewing in France, between MegaUpload and France Telecom, specifically the Orange subsidiary.

MegaUpload has claimed that Orange has been substantially slowing down, or blocking access to its servers. Presumably these actions were taken in an attempt to discourage people from using the service, a claim Orange denies.

Accusations and claims have been flying back and forth for the past few days, including a banner run by Megaupload this week which suggested that Orange subscribers call up and cancel their subscriptions, in favour of ISPs with better peering.

The full text is (translated from French)

Slow Downloads? Video playback is hesitant?
It is likely that your Internet provider is intentionally restricting your access to significant portions of the Internet! Our claims statistics show that most users who have this problem are accessing the Internet via France Telecom, often under the Orange brand (also “Ya” in Spain).

If you are concerned, please call Orange customer service on 3900 and tell them that you can not connect to sites hosted on Cogent and TATA. Also tell them that you are considering moving to an Internet provider with an excellent global connectivity, such as Iliad or SFR (free.fr, Alice). If you’re impatient and you need a good service immediately, consider changing your supplier for one of them, and be sure to tell Orange the reason for your decision to terminate your line!

In a telephone press conference last Thursday, Orange hit back at MegaUpload. The ISP stated that it follows the Net Neutrality rules as laid down by the communications regulation body ARCEP. Instead, the ISP argued that MegaUpload’s users are the victims of ‘a low-cost business model,’ where the cyberlocker signs cheap peering contracts that lead to the slow downloads.

Orange further noted that it takes no responsibility for the situation, and that MegaUpload should improve their infrastructure as other French ISP’s have had the same kinds of problems with MegaVideo/MegaUpload at times. They also added that although difficult, MegaUpload needs to find a balance between quality and economic performance.

While some might suggest it’s a battle between peering companies, there may well be more to it, which will bring the focus on ARCEP’s 4 month old net neutrality guidelines for France. It’s clear however, that this battle of wills is just heating up. Especially when (or if) the likes of HADOPI get involved, the new anti-piracy law which ironically doesn’t affect users of cyberlockers.

Source: MegaUpload Accuses ISP of Restricting Access To Its Services

Wikipedia (and indeed the whole Wikimedia Foundation) just announced that it has started to use BitTorrent to stream its videos. The foundation is using Swarmplayer from P2P-Next to try and cut down on bandwidth costs.

The Wikimedia Foundation is concerned about bandwidth costs, as video becomes more prevalent on their various project sites (like News, and Quotes and the more famous Wikipedia project). In an announcement this week the foundation stated: “Eventually bandwidth costs could saturate the foundation budget or leave less resources for other projects and programs. For this reason it is important to start exploring and experimenting with future content distribution platforms and partnerships.”

The system set up by Wikipedia uses a combination of webseeds and BitTorrent peers to spread the load. High priority pieces (like the start of the video) are pulled via more traditional HTTP sources, while later in the video where the data is of a lower priority it comes via the BitTorrent protocol. The process is described by P2Pnext in the following diagram;

Source - P2P Next

“I think it’s important as a technology and something that needs exploring,” Michael Dale, Kaltura Open Media Developer and Wikimedia admin told TorrentFreak. The 6000-or-so videos on the Wikimedia servers are all set to use the technology, as will any new ones that are added.

Currently, Swarmplayer is only available as a plugin for Firefox (3.x, it doesn’t work well with the version 4 betas). An Internet Explorer plug-in will be available within the next day or two and a Chrome plugin is planned as well, we are assured. Not so good news for the Opera and Safari users though, as there is no plugin currently planned for them. However, people are free to create their own as the code is open source. “We’re just counting on one hardcore Opera user to port it to Opera,” Dr Pouwelse of P2P-Next told TorrentFreak.

“This is another step in strengthening Web TV,” Pouwelse continued. “The long-term goal is to offer more choice, provide higher quality and increased reliability compared to traditional TV technology.”

Source: Wikipedia Adds BitTorrent Powered Video Streaming

Earlier this year, the Australian rock band Men at Work were ordered to hand over 5% of royalties for their most famous song ‘Down Under’ after a judge ruled that the flute riff in the song was based on 1934 composition ‘Kookaburra’.

Of course, the infringement was so great that no-one noticed until a TV music quiz show brought the idea into peoples heads – 28 years after the song was published. If it really was a large infringement, then it should really have been noticed 28 years and hundreds of thousands of copies earlier – or at the very least when it was performed at the closing ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. But all that time, nobody noticed.

These belated lawsuits are happening more often nowadays, and not just down under. In the US, a company called ‘Drive in Music Company’ (DIM) has been adopting the same sorts of tactics over the last few months. The company sued a slew of people over a Super Bowl advert for Kia, with The Hollywood Reporter listing targets for that one advert alone as “Kia, CBS, the NFL, ad agency David & Goliath, Ninja Tune Records and various other parties”.

While that particular suit was filed in a timely fashion, the same outfit has now started on a case that has a strong resemblance to that built against Men at Work. DIM is now claiming infringement on a song that’s old enough to vote.

Cyprus Hill’s ‘How I Could Just Kill a Man’ was released in 1991 as part of a double single as well as their debut album. As with most of their albums, the band uses samples from a number of songs in their own tracks. One of these samples comes from the song ‘Come on In’ by Music Machine that was released in 1966, and that’s the subject of the lawsuit brought on by Drive in Music Company.

All existing copies of Cyprus Hill’s self-titled (double platinum) album will be impounded and sales halted if DIM gets its way, and in addition the company wants damages for the losses they suffered.

The reason for the complaint? According to ContactMusic, DIM bosses were alerted to the alleged sampling after seeing copies of the song for sale on Apple’s iTunes. The case against Cypress Hill is not the only suit they’ve filed; a week earlier they filed against Leaders of the New School and Busta Rhymes over samples on another 1991 album, Future Without a Past.

After almost 20 years the only reason for DIM to want to sue now is because it’s potentially profitable. The longer they waited, the better. The Kookaburra precedent (albeit in Australia) helps make their case.

However, leaving the infringement for so long without action may constitute de-facto acceptance and licensing. Especially as, unlike Kookaburra, Cyprus’ use was obvious (so obvious, it’s been referenced on the album’s wiki page for at least 4 years). That said, it is doubtful that this will matter much in a US court where copyrights are treated with a near holy reverence, and infringement of such is treated as a cardinal sin, racking up penalties equivalent to major crimes.

Unless Cyprus can provide a licensing agreement, DIM may get what they want. When the writers of the US Constitution see how the progress clause has been abused, the least they’re likely to say, is “D’oh!”

Source: Copyright Trolls, Not Just for Patents Anymore

There’s a lot of misinformation about which companies and agencies can do what, and how they do it. People claim industry groups or random companies can search and send out letters at random, whereas the reality is the investigator must be authorized or they could be deemed guilty of copyright infringement themselves.

There’s also a lot of confusion about exactly how evidence is collected, with people sometimes believing that it can only be collected from corporate networks, or that private trackers are safe because investigators can’t share and so would be banned for their ratio. Much of this is untrue and these beliefs can make it easier to collect evidence.

The easiest way of all is to simply collect information from trackers. It’s an easy and quick way to do it, although as was revealed 2 years ago, it’s often quite inaccurate.

The next simplest way, which provides lots of data, is just to join a swarm and monitor. Some people believe that clients doing this will stand out, as modified clients will behave differently. The reality is that clients don’t have to be monitored at all.

Researcher Andrew Norton produced this video explaining how a vanilla µTorrent client can be used to identify and log peers without any modification or abnormal behavior.

The raw data shown in the video – all that’s needed for a lawsuit or allegation under most 3-strikes laws – is nothing more than basic communication data. However, it’s critical to note that this data, while it is evidence of activity, is NOT evidence of infringement in many cases.

We can’t testify that this is the method used by any company – they’re notoriously tight-lipped about their methods – but it’s quite possible that it’s being used and sold on as a very high priced service to customers. Selling simple and not always accurate or effective methods for thousands of dollars a week was revealed to be a key method of MediaDefender. Anyone reading this and intending to hire such companies would be advised to ask for a demonstration of their detection system first-hand.

It should, however, come as yet another wakeup call to those using blocklist-based software. Without any way to identify a client using this method, there’s no way to add its IP to the list. In fact, the public availability of block-list contents means it’s extremely easy to avoid being on them.

On the other hand VPNs, proxies and seedboxes will provide some protection, but the only real solution is to press for the peer-review of anti-P2P companies and their methods, but that doesn’t look like it will come any time soon.

Source: How Any BitTorrent User Can Collect Lawsuit Evidence

It eventually passed with most MP’s not voting, despite a 3-line whip on the topic for the then-ruling Labour Party MPs.

The Bill passed to become the Digital Economy Act with a narrower margin than many expected given the voting instructions from the party – some had stood up for their conscience and for the facts, risking sanctions from their party.

The Act has been broken down by the Pirate Party into five sections:

1. Introduction and the Initial Obligations Code
2. Technical measures to limit Internet access
3. Subscriber appeals
4. Web-blocking
5. Other Provisions and Summary

This sort of technical guide would have been even better if made available before the vote. Passed around the Commons bar, it could have helped people who were clearly uncertain of technology or the Bill’s actual contents to make better sense of it.

For the regular everyday citizens who are now subject to this law, it’s also beneficial. A major problem with recent legislation worldwide is that it’s often impenetrable to anyone without legal training. The ability to access laws and understand them is key to those working with, and striving to improve them.

Meanwhile the Act is still not completed and final. Several UK Government departments, including OFCOM, have been delegated powers and abilities under the Act. There have been consultations (and there may be more) to address parts, and the outcomes of those will make a difference. Many people though, are probably expecting the worst.

On this topic, governments around the world have been increasingly disinterested in listening to the concerns of the citizens affected by the Act, while making policy based on the wishes of a few dozen large companies, and their anecdotal ‘evidence‘.

Of course, those that the Act was created to target will probably be the only ones not troubled by it, and that also says volumes about the quality of the law, and the futility of such laws worldwide. Not that such facts will stop things.

Source: UK Pirate Party’s Guide to the Digital Economy Act

Nowhere else was that more apparent than in the June 2009 EU elections, when they carried a surprise 7.3% of the vote. This election result gave them one seat in the European Parliament.

The seat was taken by Christian Engstrom, (who also happens to have been the most popular MEP) with the potential for an additional seat if the Lisbon Treaty went through. The treaty passed in November 2009 and came into force as of December 1st 2009. The Piratpartiet were confirmed to have gained a second seat, which went to 22 year old Amelia Andersdotter, but several months later she still had not been able to take her seat.

Fast forward to August 2010 – almost 15 months after the election and 9 months after the ratification of the treaty – the EU is finally realizing that there are a number of Parliament Members that were elected, but never seated (Ghost MEPs). That may be about to change.

Ms. Andersdotter notes on her blog that she may soon be able to start representing her country, as she was elected to do. She just needs an ‘aye’ from the Council of Presidents (funnily enough, headed by the EU President, a position created by the same Treaty as Ms Andersdotter’s seat, but filled without either election or delay) to gain observer status, meaning they can do everything but vote. They get that ability when all nations approve the ‘transition protocols’. While the first vote could take place within 2 weeks time, the latter will probably take longer, especially as some countries (France) still haven’t assigned their extra MEPs.

A report in yesterday’s Times of Malta has put some doubt on the process though, as the EU is apparently strapped for cash and unable to afford the extra MEPs.

An EU parliamentary official told the Times, “Unfortunately, it seems the new MEPs, including the one from Malta, will not be able to join as observers this year because the EP has not allocated funds for this purpose in this year’s budget,” adding there may be some money to pay for the Ghost MEPs in the 2011 budget, but that it’s not been decided to invite them even then, so it’s not been allocated yet.

Then again, this is a body that was unable to pass a law banning 3-strikes laws, despite 88% support, so anything is possible.

Source: Sweden to Finally Get a Second Pirate MEP?

Both claimed that such technologies, and the file-sharing networks that sprung up to support them, have decimated their industries. And yet both groups have never been healthier financially.

With the increasing popularity of e-book readers such as Apple’s iPad, the Barnes & Noble Nook and Amazon’s Kindle, many in the publishing industry are starting to make the same claims as their music and film brethren.

At the start of the year CNN ran an article about e-books, their increasing sales and the fears of piracy. But how realistic are these fears? After conducting some early research on download statistics after the iPad introduction, we also touched on the subject and concluded ‘”Don’t worry about things.” It’s a position that seems to be borne out by the evidence. Let’s look at an example.

At the end of June, David Weber’s novel “Mission of Honor” was published by Baen books. Baen is a big supporter of e-books and has run a free e-book library of some of their titles over the last 10 years, called The Baen Free Library strangely enough. One of the other ways they support e-books is to include a bound-in CD with certain hardcover editions, containing the e-book files of that title in several formats including several DRM-free ones.

Mission of Honor had one of those CDs. Mission’s CD didn’t just contain one e-book though, it had e-books for a good chunk of the author’s published works, including all the previous books in the series. Again all these files were in multiple (DRM-free) formats – there’s even an occasionally audiobook version (and yes, you guessed it, no DRM on it either).

Here’s the kicker though, Baen has no problems with people distributing the contents of the CD in non-commercial ways. Fellow author, David Drake put it best in the Orientation on one of the earlier CD’s.

The files on this CD are not encrypted. Jim [Baen] doesn’t understand the logic of making his books hard for people to read. Neither do I, though we seem to be in the minority among publishers and authors. Read them. Copy them. Give them to your friends.[..]

You’re not supposed to sell the files. “Who’d be stupid enough to buy something they could have for free?” you may well ask yourself. If you do sell them, you are a Bad Person and may later exhibit signs of wanting to run for political office; but between you and me, I’m not going to come hunt you down.

If e-book pirates are killing the industry as some people seem to believe, this free CD would have guaranteed that the book will sell badly, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

The hardcover went on sale June 20th and the e-book CD went up the same day. Yet the book was #13 on the New York Times (NYT) bestseller list for July 2nd. It had slipped a bit to #24 the next week, and then to #26 the week after. But if e-books are killing the industry, how could a niche book (book 12 in a sci-fi series) sell so well? Especially when sci-fi fans are the ones most likely to be technologically oriented, and thus more likely to read e-books?

Can e-books improve the publishing industry? Without a doubt. One of the more innovative methods Baen uses to promote books is a teaser section. It’s not ‘official’ but it’s strongly supported by Baen. Three times a week, sections of a chapter of upcoming books are uploaded to a website called “Collected Driblets of Baen: A Frankly Promotional Endeavor…” and the author decides how much or little of his as-yet unpublished work will be previewed. In the case of Matter of Honor the previews started in February 2010 and ran until July 2nd – scoring some 71,000 hits over the publication of the 18 chapters.

The preview concept is relatively new, but it could be a huge boon for the publishing industry. Never before has it been so easy to tease potential readers, and sell more books because of it. Aside from the previews, another advantage is that people can buy books on their e-book readers and start reading straight away. This as opposed to waiting a day or two for a book to arrive, or going to an actual book store.

The question then is how best publishers should act to encourage people to buy e-books and physical books. As with films and music publishers they should address the concerns of the buying public, and treat them with respect instead of pushing DRM and revocable licenses. Trying to hide away from e-books has not worked for Harry Potter or Twilight, so pre-empt readers and convert them.

In that way, music and TV/movies differ from books in that the physical object of a book is different from the digital version; holding a book in your hands is different from holding and reading an e-book. Rather than treating e-books like the great Satan (as many publishers and authors do), or a replacement (as Amazon currently does), Baen has done very well by treating them as promotion. Eric Flint, author, editor, and ‘Librarian’ of the Baen Free Library made the following observation back in 2000.

“Dave Weber’s On Basilisk Station has been available for free as a “loss leader” for Baen’s for-pay experiment “Webscriptions” for months now. And — hey, whaddaya know? — over that time it’s become Baen’s most popular backlist title in paper!

And so I volunteered my first novel, Mother of Demons, to prove the case. And the next day Mother of Demons went up online, offered to the public for free.

Sure enough, within a day, I received at least half a dozen messages (some posted in public forums, others by private email) from people who told me that, based on hearing about the episode and checking out Mother of Demons, they either had or intended to buy the book. In one or two cases, this was a “gesture of solidarity. “But in most instances, it was because people preferred to read something they liked in a print version and weren’t worried about the small cost — once they saw, through sampling it online, that it was a novel they enjoyed. (Mother of Demons is a $5.99 paperback, available in most bookstores. Yes, that a plug. )

E-books have the potential to increase sales of physical books as well as provide their own source of income. That is, if authors and publishers are willing to accept them and deal with their users fairly, instead of hiding behind curiously high prices or DRM. E-books are the future. Last month Amazon reported it was selling more e-books than hardcovers. E-books are not going to go away any time soon, nor are they a flash in the pan. The lessons should have been learned from the 10+ year music fight. Throwing money at enforcement and litigation doesn’t work. Instead embracing the medium can be beneficial.

Source: E-books, Piracy Peril or Promotional Possibilities?

In the RIAA’s case against Jamie Thomas, the jury-awarded damages were reduced significantly as the excessive damages were ruled to be unconstitutional. Today, the same thing has happened with the case against Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum.

The ruling issued by District Judge Nancy Gertner states that the constitutional issues are clear, and that attempting to avoid the constitutional challenges (that the damages are excessive in proportion to the crime) by reducing the damages would be the best way to handle these.

The verdict comes as no surprise to many, and may even come as a relief to the RIAA, who have faced some negative publicity over the damages awarded. It’s unclear, though, if this modification will stand, as the RIAA will have to accept it. If they don’t, a retrial will be called.

Judge Gertner finds a retrial likely, stating in the judgment: “The plaintiffs in this case, however, made it abundantly clear that they were, to put it mildly, going for broke. They stated in open court that they likely would not accept a remitted award.”

“The Constitution protects not only criminal defendants from the imposition of ‘cruel and unusual punishments’, but also civil defendants facing arbitrarily high punitive awards,” Gertner added.

The meat of the subject can be found on page 6, though.

I reduce the jury’s award to $2,250 per infringed work, three times the statutory minimum, for a total award of $67,500. Significantly, this amount is more than I might have awarded in my independent judgment. But the task of determining the appropriate damages award in this case fell to the jury, not the Court. I have merely reduced the award to the greatest amount that the Constitution will permit given the facts of this case.

There is no question that this reduced award is still severe, even harsh. It not only adequately compensates the plaintiffs for the relatively minor harm that Tenenbaum caused them; it sends a strong message that those who exploit peer-to-peer networks to unlawfully download and distribute copyrighted works run the risk of incurring substantial damages awards. Tenenbaum’s behavior, after all, was hardly exemplary. The jury found that he not only violated the law, but did so willfully.

Reducing the jury’s $675,000 award, however, also sends another no less important message: The Due Process Clause does not merely protect large corporations, like BMW and State Farm, from grossly excessive punitive awards. It also protects ordinary people like Joel Tenenbaum

This judgment relieves some of the PR pressure around the RIAA. While they were clearly happy with the height of the damages, hoping it would intimidate filesharers, it also became a rallying cry for others. The reduced damages proposed by Judge Gertner may silence the opposition to some extent, and reduce the impact of campaigns.

Joel Tenenbaum was somewhat relieved upon hearing the verdict. In a telephone interview with the Boston Globe he said: “Obviously, it’s better news than it could have been. But it’s basically equally unpayable to me.”

Even if he could pay it, none of the money – be it $675,000, or $67,500 – would find its way into the pockets of the artists whose songs were involved. The RIAA told TorrentFreak that the damages will be used to fund new anti-piracy campaigns instead.

Whether or not there will be a retrial, the current verdict is a blow to their anti-piracy campaigns, while the Constitutional concern may preclude any further strengthening of copyright laws and punishments in the near future.

Breaking story…

Source: Judge Slams RIAA, $675k Fine Ruled Unconstitutional

The Pirate Parties around the world are best known for copyright activism and are often seen as a ‘one-issue party’. While they also focus on privacy, government transparency, free speech, and patent reform, it is copyright that people’s minds spring to. So, with an election coming up, the Swedish Pirate Party has decided to play to their strength.

The party has announced today that they intend to use part of the Swedish Constitution to further these goals, specifically Parliamentary Immunity from prosecution or lawsuit for things done as part of their political mandate. They intend to push the non-commercial sharing part of their manifesto, by running The Pirate Bay from ‘inside’ the Parliament, by Members of Parliament.

This move will certainly push the site to center-stage in Sweden. It will ensure a huge amount of scrutiny in any and all decisions made regarding the site, which is undoubtedly the intent.

“Sweden has long been a nation at the forefront of IT. But we have fallen in the rankings, largely because today’s politicians do not see the connection between file-sharing culture and future industry skills. We have now moved from place three to eight in available household bandwidth,” the Pirate Party informed TorrentFreak in a statement.

“There is no reason for us to accept this development – there are no technical reasons for this, only political.”

“Therefore, we can never accept the copyright industry’s way of systematically and legally harassing anyone who tries to build next-generation industries. The approach is criminal in the world and should be criminal in Sweden also, professional saboteurs are professional criminals, whoever they get their money from,” the Party added.

Aside from hosting The Pirate Bay in Parliament, the Pirate Party also plans to criminalize copyright lawsuits against noncommercial file-sharers and websites, as well as lawsuits against ISPs for linking to copyrighted material.

“The Lobby is used to using dirty tricks. Let’s see them take on legislators under constitutional protection who aim to criminalize their entire bag of dirty tricks,” Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge told us.

Of course, the plan can only take place if the Party wins some seats in the September 19^th Elections, where there is a 4% barrier to overcome. However, last June they did manage 7% in the European Parliament elections, so it’s not an impossible goal by any means. We will have to wait and see what September brings.

If The Pirate Party succeeds it will add some more controversy to the upcoming appeal of the ‘Pirate Bay Four’, which is currently scheduled to take place a month after the general elections.

Source: Pirate Party to Run Pirate Bay from Swedish Parliament

At a hearing on the topic yesterday, many of the witnesses were sceptical of the claims and assumptions made by the affected US industries, including the MPAA and RIAA-commissioned reports. Harvard Business School Professor Fritz Foley called the basic assumption behind the industry loss figures into doubt.

“It seems a bit crazy to me,” PC World quotes him telling the Commission on the first day of the hearing. “To assume that someone who would pay some low amount for a pirated product would be the type of customer who’d pay some amount that’s six or 10 [times] that amount for a real one.” While some companies, such as EA (at times), don’t follow this ‘a copy equals a lost sale’ system, the majority do.

“Be careful about using information the multinational [companies] provide you,” cautioned Foley. “I would imagine they have an incentive to make the losses seem very, very large.”

Professor Foley’s comments reiterate what the Government Accountability Office told US congress earlier this year. There is virtually no evidence for the claimed million dollar losses. “Lack of data hinders efforts to quantify impacts of counterfeiting and piracy,” was one of the main conclusions from their report. In fact, copyright infringements may also benefit the entertainment industries and third parties, it argued.

An Intellectual Properly law professor at Drake University had another perspective. Pointing out there are two sides to economics, Professor Peter Yu noted that companies counterfeiting products in China may employ US workers, and consume US-sourced raw materials, so it’s not a straight loss. It’s similar to how VHS tapes were not the straight loss the movie industry predicted and claimed in the late 70s and early 80s. Yu also noted that it’s useful in spreading Western ideas to China, although how well lobbying will go down is anyone’s guess.

One of the best suggestions so far, however, came from Ohio State University law professor Daniel Chow. When asked how the size of the problem can be identified and quantified, he suggested that the agency should push the affected industries for more data, presumably data that backs up their claims (there is little-to-none available at present).

Professor Chow also noted that current enforcement efforts are not working (as we have previously reported), and that companies should start thinking about the long-term. It’s advice that the industries would be wise to follow, as every past copyright conflict has, despite a short-term loss, provided massive long-term benefits and growth for the affected industries.

Source: US Government Told Piracy Losses Are Exaggerated

Over the past few years, successive Canadian governments have tried to introduce new copyright bills which have been been repeatedly unpopular. Recently some lobbyists even accused TorrentFreak of abusing a consultation by manipulating a consultation on copyright. However, the dust has settled, and so now we have Bill C-32.

The text of the Bill is almost impenetrable, as usual – perhaps in a bid to disguise what is actually intended – but a few things are clear. This is almost everything the lobbyists wanted, and little that matched the wishes of the public. While there are provisions that are extremely pro-consumer, such as giving people the ability to format shift, it is mostly negated by restrictions placed upon it.

One of the strongest downsides to the Bill is the increased restriction on bypassing DRM. Even when a copy can be made, such as for format shifting, if it means bypassing DRM, it’s a no-no. All despite DRM being an abject failure at its intended purpose – preventing copying – it’s great at doing something else – inconveniencing legitimate customers.

“For the third time, the Canadian government has looked toward the deep pockets of the RIAA and MPAA for inspiration in dealing with copyright,” the Canadian Pirate Party told TorrentFreak. “Bill C-32 represents a gross disregard of consumers’ free will to control what they rightfully own, through banning the bypass of ‘DRM’ controls placed by big industry.”

There is also an apparent lack of indemnity associated with the Bill. Gary Fung of isoHunt shared concerns with TorrentFreak over the lack of immunity from liability when complying with the process in handling copyright notifications in the Bill. It could mean not only the end of sites like isoHunt, but also of Youtube and Facebook.

Of course, such double-standards become obvious when the very point behind the Bill is unclear. The Bill’s preamble, for instance, finishes with two contradictory paragraphs:

Whereas the Government of Canada is committed to enhancing the protection of copyright works or other subject-matter, including through the recognition of technological protection measures, in a manner that promotes culture and innovation, competition and investment in the Canadian economy;

And whereas Canada’s ability to participate in a knowledge economy driven by innovation and network connectivity is fostered by encouraging the use of digital technologies for research and education;

And there is clear evidence that the minsters behind C-32 have either not read it, or do not understand it. This is part of an email sent from the office of Tony Clement, the Minister of Industry, that was forwarded to TorrentFreak:

We are pleased to inform you that the Government of Canada has introduced legislation to modernize the Copyright Act, bringing it up to date with the advances of the digital age.

This legislation will bring Canada in line with international standards and promote homegrown innovation and creativity. It is a fair, balanced, and common-sense approach, respecting both the rights of creators and the interests of consumers in a modern marketplace.

The actual intent is made clear towards the end.

It gives creators and copyright owners the tools to protect their work and grow their business models.

In a nutshell, that’s what the Bill boils down to – protection for the copyright industries and their business models. On the positive side, perhaps the Bill will force the government to do something about the massive piracy the Canadian music industry has been undertaking for many years.

Source: Third Time the Charm? Canada Tries New Copyright Bill Again

Championed by Baron Mandelson after an entirely coincidental holiday meeting with Dreamworks co-founder David Geffin, the Bill has now taken another step in its rush to become law before the end of Parliament, despite all the protests and criticisms.

The Bill, which the UK Pirate Party say “will shape the future of technological and artistic progress” was not important to most MPs. Through the 5 hours of debates, only around 20 MPs were present, including just one from the Liberal Democrat party  - Don Foster (Lib-Dem, Bath) – who had pledged not to vote for the Bill.

The scene at 9:45pm after 5 hours of speeches

Debate was mostly back and forth over the contentious issue of disconnections, but industry figures and unverified estimates were again quoted as fact. Many (including Labour MPs) were outraged at the Government for having left it so late to try and rush through a Bill as complex and controversial as this. It did, however, get passed at this second reading and will be taken to a third tomorrow.

The low turnout didn’t stop the invective, however, or the silly comments, lies, inaccuracies and other miscellaneous statements, all of which were picked up on Twitter (over 16,000 tweets under the #DEB and #DEBill tags), and analyzed a great deal more thoroughly than by these MPs that had apparently read the Bill. Some of the most memorable points include:

• “The creative industries have grown at twice the rate of the economy as a whole over the past 10 years, and they should do so again over the next 10″. Ben Bradshaw MP
• [on Clause 43 - Orphan works] “Let me provide an example of where this is already going wrong. An image of none other than the great Lord Mandelson himself is apparently being used to market a Russian vodka, with the caption, “When only the best is good enough”. If ever we needed proof that captions to pirated images can be misleading, surely that is it.” Jeremy Hunt MP
• “The Government could have brought this Bill before Parliament ages ago, because these issues have been in the public domain for years. The Gowers review of intellectual property is so old it is practically out of copyright.” Jeremy Hunt MP
• “I cannot see how the Bill takes on India or China; I simply cannot see a single provision that does so. They are not going to settle for 2 megabytes; they are going to settle for 100 — and much, much more.” Derek Wyatt MP
• “Listen, if we want the smartest, most creative industry, we have to tackle intellectual property and copyright together. They cannot just be shunted in as a couple of paragraphs; they are so fundamental to the reason why people write music, sing or create whatever they do.” Derek Wyatt MP

And most amusingly:

• “People are not talking about co-operating and sharing their own thoughts and content, but are stealing someone else’s content and sharing that. There is an Armageddon, which has partially arrived in Sweden, where the Pirate Party, whose leader is in jail, won seats in the European Parliament on the basis that everybody’s work—including MP4’s—should be free.” Michael Connarty MP. Rick Falkvinge was quick to point out that he remains a free man.”Despite rumors to the contrary, it is still not illegal in Sweden to hold political opinions that would bring the country into the digital age,” he told TorrentFreak. “Such a  society would be atrocious and far out of line from all Human Rights Conventions. One might also wonder what other facts proponents of the Digital Economy Bill have gotten entirely wrong.”

The Bill passed despite extensive opposition from many MPs present, who had concerns over specific amendments and the breakneck pace the Bill is being forced through with virtually no debate. The sensible suggestion that it be left for the next Government to reintroduce was derided as it is “needed now”, despite the fact that those industries have not only survived, put prospered without the Bill for the last 10 years.

Meanwhile, the MPs were not so much concerned with the public outcry, as the sartorial comments on Twitter. The Bill now gets a total of two hours for Committee, Reports and its third reading later today, after which it will be (probably) passed.

The first two hours of debate can be watched on the BBC website and the transcripts are here. The third reading of the DEB is scheduled for tonight and if the bill passes it will head over to the Lords where it will be signed into law.

Source: Pirate Party Leader Imprisoned During DEB Debate?

This week, the Pirate Party UK, founded last summer, has announced their candidate list. The ten candidates come on the heels of the publication of their manifesto, and cover a broad swathe of the country, from London all the way to Scotland.

As with the Swedish party in last summer’s EU elections, not all the candidates are fresh faced youngsters. Quite a few are definitely middle-aged, including party leader Andrew Robinson (41). Despite characterizations such as ‘kids just out for something for free’, they, like all Pirate Parties, will focus on reforming copyright, privacy and patent laws, while preventing the spread of others.

The candidates are:

• Andrew Robinson – Worcester
• Graeme Lambert – Bury North
• Mark Sims – East Ham
• Alexander van Terheyden – Bethnal Green and Bow
• Tim Dobson – Manchester Gorton
• Luke Leighton – South West Surrey
• Shaun Dyer – Leicester West
• Finlay Archibald – Glasgow Central
• David Geraghty – Derby North
• Jack Nunn – constituency to be decided (London area)

TorrentFreak spoke with Bury North candidate Graeme Lambert, who at 18 is the youngest of the party’s candidates and just old enough to vote himself. Bury North’s current MP, Labour’s David Chaytor, made the news recently as he was charged with theft relating to last year’s expenses scandal, which Lambert has seized on in his campaign.

“The Pirate Party UK is a corruption-free political party which the constituents of Bury North deserve after the actions of David Chaytor,” he told us. Lambert is optimistic of a decent showing, although thinks it unlikely that he will win.

“I’m aiming to secure our deposit, which would require 2500 votes, which I am confident that I can achieve. My chances of winning the seat are relative to Ladbrokes odds of 250/1″.

Indeed, bookmakers Ladbrokes have given all the party’s candidates a 250/1 chance of winning, which is worse than most small parties such as the Green, UKIP and Liberal parties, but better than the 500/1 of long-time electoral jokers, the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Lambert is not the only one running for a seat which has strong resonances with the party manifesto. Mark Sims, a 37 year-old IT teacher, is running against Stephen Timms who is responsible for “Digital Britain”. Last year Timms gave the reason for the rushing of Digital Britain as  ”the plans as they stand could delay action, impacting unfairly upon rights holders”, certain to be a key feature of Sims’ campaign.

Of course, all this comes at a price, and the party is looking for donations and ways to raise money to help pay for the campaigns.

“We’d love to give as many people as possible the opportunity to ‘Vote Pirate’ in the election,” says Peter Brett, the Deputy Campaigns Officer. “Unfortunately, this means we need to raise just over £9000 in addition to the funds previously raised through member subscriptions. This will be just enough for all our candidates to pay their deposits and to have a reasonable amount for publicity materials.”

With the Digital Economy Bill about to be rammed through the Commons, despite protests, will this be enough?

Source: UK Pirate Party Announces 2010 Election Lineup

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/uk-pirate-party-announces-2010-election-lineup-100402/feed/ 48 http://torrentfreak.com/second-pirate-mep-still-not-in-office-100115/ http://torrentfreak.com/second-pirate-mep-still-not-in-office-100115/#comments Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:51:20 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=20669 Source: Europe’s Second Pirate MP Still Not in Office
]]> Back in June 2009, the Swedish Pirate Party (or Piratpartiet) gained an impressive victory in the European Parliament elections, with 7% of the votes. This got them a seat in the European Parliament, with the possibility for a second if the Lisbon Treaty passed.

The treaty was eventually passed in early November and became effective December 1st 2009.

While one of the positions created by the treaty – that of the President – was filled immediately and set to work, the same can’t be said of the elected representatives in the European Parliament. To date, there has been no information on when the new elected representatives, from all around Europe will take office.

Piratpartiet’s (sole) MEP, Christian Engstrom, is not happy with the way things are being handled.

“Personally I find it difficult to understand why they can put the unelected president in office from day one, but don’t even have a plan for how to get the elected representatives of the people there,” Engstrom told TorrentFreak.

When the Pirate Party’s representative-in-waiting – 22 year old Amelia Andersdotter – and the 17 other new Parliament members will be seated is anyone’s guess. It is particularly pressing for the small parties like Piratpartiet though, where the second seat will help increase funding and enable the parties to function better.

What effect this snubbing will have in the next round of elections is unclear, but it is unlikely to hurt the Pirate Party in countries such as the UK and Sweden during this year’s national elections. On the contrary, it may even increase support in protest.

Meanwhile, requests for information from the EU on when the MEPs will be seated, have so far gone unanswered.

Source: Europe’s Second Pirate MP Still Not in Office

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/second-pirate-mep-still-not-in-office-100115/feed/ 56 http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-victim-files-for-new-trial-damages-100106/ http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-victim-files-for-new-trial-damages-100106/#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:20:51 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=20416 Source: RIAA Victim Files for New Trial, Damages Excessive
]]> It would seem statutory damages are a bittersweet pill for the record industry. On one hand they provide a handy battering ram for intimidating litigation targets into settling out of court, which is good for them. On the other, they can be used to turn a victory into a crushing defeat, which could be very bad.

Thus far, two US file-sharing cases involving individuals have gone to trial. Both resulted in victory for the recording industry, one of them twice.

In 2007, Jammie Thomas was sentenced to pay damages of $222,000 for 24 counts of infringement ($9,250 per infringement). Later, a retrial was granted, and in June 2009 a jury returned a similar decision, but with increased damages of $1.92 million ($80,000 per infringement).

Meanwhile, in July 2009, Joel Tenenbaum was also found to be willfully infringing, and a jury awarded damages of $675,000 ($22,500 per infringement).

On July 6th 2009, Thomas filed with the court that the damages were constitutionally excessive, and now Tenenbaum has too.

The central point of the case revolves around a US Supreme Court precedent, which is quoted in the filing as “few awards exceeding a single-digit ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, to a significant degree, will satisfy due process.”

Compensatory refers to an amount to make up for actual losses (the damages suffered) and the punitive damages are designed to act as a deterrent for others and to punish. In this case, states the filing, at best it’s in the low 5-digits (22,500:1), and could easily actually be in the upper-5 digits (65,000:1 or greater).

Other considerations are put forward as well, including that the DRM imposed on music until 2007 (and still imposed on audiobooks) encouraged the use of P2P economically; or that the ‘egregiousness’ of the offense is low in comparison to the penalties – that it’s at most as bad as shoplifting – but the constitutionality of the damages is the main thrust, as it is with the Thomas case.

Time will tell as to how the courts will decide, but it may be that the very success in gaining such large damages awards will lead to a great diluting of the power of statutory damages. Very much a case of winning the battle, but losing the war; not what was expected when the papers were first filed, all those years ago.

Source: RIAA Victim Files for New Trial, Damages Excessive

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-victim-files-for-new-trial-damages-100106/feed/ 62 http://torrentfreak.com/comcast-to-compensate-throttled-bittorrent-users-091222/ http://torrentfreak.com/comcast-to-compensate-throttled-bittorrent-users-091222/#comments Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:26:45 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=20031 Source: Comcast To Compensate Throttled BitTorrent Users
]]> The Comcast BitTorrent throttling story is one of the major case studies for net neutrality. More than two years have passed since we broke the story that led to an FCC investigation and even lawsuits from affected users.

In one of the class action suits that were brought about from the long-running incident, Comcast has now agreed to settle, meaning those affected may be eligible for compensation.

About two and a half years ago, reports surfaced on what appeared to be the throttling of BitTorrent connections by Comcast. The throttling, first discovered by Rob Toplowski, was confirmed by TorrentFreak, and was first reported in August 2007. Other news agencies picked it up later, especially after tests by the EFF and Associated Press confirmed events and included reports that other network based activity was also affected.

Comcast long-denied any wrongdoing, but a leaked memo revealed that the company went as far as instructing its front-line staff to lie about the issue. Then the FCC got involved and things deteriorated. At a hearing at Harvard, Comcast packed the venue with people they bussed in, but it didn’t stop the BitTorrent throttling practice being termed a ‘hacker technique’.

Eventually, some assurances were made, and the FCC ordered Comcast to stop using Sandvine. Meanwhile lawsuits had been filed. One of these, Hart vs Comcast of Alameda, attained class action status, and there is now a proposed settlement.

Comcast has agreed to put $16M into a fund to pay BitTorrent users that were inconvenienced by the ‘network management’.

The downside is the size of the settlement. If you qualify, you can receive a maximum of $16, yet still Comcast refuses to accept it did anything wrong. The administrators of the settlement have set up a website to deal with questions about the case which can be found at www.p2pcongestionsettlement.com

It’s not hard to imagine that some customers will feel this doesn’t go far enough, and undoubtedly the discussion on this topic will continue. For the affected Comcast users there is still time to decide how to proceed – the deadline for claims is August 14th 2010. Meanwhile, network neutrality remains a pipe dream for most people.

Source: Comcast To Compensate Throttled BitTorrent Users

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/comcast-to-compensate-throttled-bittorrent-users-091222/feed/ 69 http://torrentfreak.com/us-holds-ridiculously-one-sided-anti-piracy-roundtable-091215/ http://torrentfreak.com/us-holds-ridiculously-one-sided-anti-piracy-roundtable-091215/#comments Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:39:37 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=19861 Source: US Holds Ridiculously One-Sided Anti-Piracy Roundtable
]]> Copyright is an issue that affects everyone. Every word, image and expression of thought is copyrightable. It is a system of law that places restrictions on the fundamentals of civilization – communication and expression. So when it comes to policy talks involving that subject, it would seem only natural that representatives of the people of the United States are involved. Not so in the modern day world.

When it comes to copyright policy, there appears to be only one set of people the government is willing to listen to, and that’s the copyright lobbyists groups. Groups that don’t represent the creators as much as those that manage the creators; the middlemen. And so it is with the attendees of today’s meeting with US Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden, whose political career – like many US politicians – has been partly funded by pro-copyright groups, came out to say that he is offended by the “flat unadulterated theft” some call piracy. A bold statement, but not really that surprising when you take a look at the one-sided list of attendees.

There are no consumer groups, no technology companies, and few representatives of the artistic creators themselves. There are plenty of are representatives of middlemen companies though. Companies that make their money from managing, distributing and promoting, tasks that are increasingly being made obsolete with technological progress.

We’re talking about the likes of Sony’s Michael Lynton, who on behalf of an industry that’s having one of it’s best ever years, plead poverty less than two months ago. And Edgar Bronfman, head of WMG – you remember, the company that claimed copyrights that aren’t theirs.

What will have been on the agenda? Well, probably no items on how factually inaccurate the recent CBS piece was, or how anti-piracy studies would be improved with the release of supporting data. Instead, it will be the likes of future anti-piracy laws such as ACTA, and questioning the ability to introduce similar legislation to France and the UK.

Not that we will find out though, as apparently the press has been kicked out. Perhaps, like ACTA, this is a national security issue too. After all, who says terrorists don’t download Die Hard films for training purposes?

Source: US Holds Ridiculously One-Sided Anti-Piracy Roundtable

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/us-holds-ridiculously-one-sided-anti-piracy-roundtable-091215/feed/ 151 http://torrentfreak.com/apple-says-audiobooks-must-have-drm-091212/ http://torrentfreak.com/apple-says-audiobooks-must-have-drm-091212/#comments Sat, 12 Dec 2009 21:06:39 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=19737 Source: Apple Says Audiobooks Must Have DRM
]]> DRM doesn’t work. We know it, you know it and even the RIAA knows it. The FCC has had hearings on it, and even the retailers agree that it is useless, which was why Apple removed DRM from their music. Unfortunately, it’s still required for audiobooks that are sold through the iTunes Music Store.

Cory Doctorow, blogger, author and columnist, is not shy of technology or the Internet. His last book, Little Brother, covered the internet, RFID, terrorism and even the Pirate Party. Doctorow also served as the European Director for the EFF and co-founded the ORG. When it comes to DRM, he knows his stuff, and he also knows that DRM doesn’t work

So, when he wanted to release an audio version of his new book ‘Makers’ without DRM, it seemed a fairly simple prospect. The publishers, Random House Audio, were amenable to it. The problem was one of distribution. There are two major players in this area, Audible and Apple. Unlike the publishers, they are not so keen on the ‘no DRM’ position.

Audible, writes Doctorow in Publishers Weekly, turned them down flat when it came to a DRM-free version of Little Brother last year. Since they’re the only retailer on the iTunes music store, that locked out an huge market. When it came time for ‘Makers,’ this time they said yes. Apple, however, said No. audiobooks have to have DRM.

Doesn’t matter what the author or publisher wants, Apple wants DRM, so it’s DRM or nothing.

The backup plan then was just to sell via Audible. The problem then, writes Doctorow, is that while the files might not contain DRM, they come with an End User Licensing Agreement (EULA), which effectively does the same thing – DRM by contract.

DRM might be be gone from music as apple proudly proclaimed early this year, but it’s still alive and kicking. Often not because of the artist or the publisher wants it, but because it’s a store requirement. Indeed, Mr Doctorow is very happy with his publisher, telling TorrentFreak “Random House Audio has been remarkably flexible and committed to letting me sell my audiobooks without DRM and I’m incredibly grateful to them and to my editor, Amy Metsch, for all their hard work.”

Now for Apple and Audible to similarly be flexible and hard working, after all, they didn’t create the work, they’re just selling it.

Source: Apple Says Audiobooks Must Have DRM

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/apple-says-audiobooks-must-have-drm-091212/feed/ 110 http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-mep-proposes-internet-bill-of-rights-091209/ http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-mep-proposes-internet-bill-of-rights-091209/#comments Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:09:52 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=19344 Source: Pirate Party MEP Proposes ‘Internet Bill of Rights’
]]> Together with Amelia Andersdotter, Christian Engstrom represents the Pirate Party in the European Parliament. He worked hard last month on ensuring judicial review before disconnections or sanctions over file-sharing can take place, and now he’s looking to do more with a proposed Bill of Internet Rights.

The Bill of Internet Rights would cover topics such as Net Neutrality, online privacy and freedom of information. Where possible the bill will take existing legislation as the basis. What makes this different though, is the process he’s using to help develop the document – an “Internet swarm”. Comments, suggestions and questions are all welcomed via his website, to contribute to the development of the document.

“I don’t think the problem is that there are a lot of politicians who actively want to dismount our civil liberties,” Engstrom told TorrentFreak. “It’s just that they haven’t realized that the Internet is an important part of our society, where the fundamental rights have to apply. They think it’s some kind of toy they can take away from the children if they’ve been naughty. The task is to explain to them that this is not an acceptable way of handling the net.”

Pirate MEP Christian Engstrom



The idea for the bill came from the “Internet Core Group” inside the European Greens, where the proposal has strong support. Engstrom also says that during the negotiations for the Telecom Package there was a lot of talk about the need to safeguard net neutrality, so he feels hopeful about this proposal.

“When it comes to safeguarding the fundamental civil liberties, such as the right to privacy and information freedom – well, that’s a fight we just have to win,” Engstrom said. According to the current planning, the Bill of Rights will be ready for proposal in the spring of 2010.

Source: Pirate Party MEP Proposes ‘Internet Bill of Rights’

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-mep-proposes-internet-bill-of-rights-091209/feed/ 69 http://torrentfreak.com/trackon-the-bittorrent-tracker-tracker-091117/ http://torrentfreak.com/trackon-the-bittorrent-tracker-tracker-091117/#comments Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:26:25 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=18272 Source: Trackon, The BitTorrent Tracker Tracker
]]> Public torrent have their critics, who mostly comment that they’re slow, unverified or unreliable. Only the latter is down to the tracker itself – the others are down to peers and sites.

Often public or open trackers are heavily loaded and operated on a shoestring budget, either as an ancillary project or out of someone’s pocket. This can leave them prone to unexpected downtime, requiring DHT or additional trackers to be added to torrents in order to find peers. Additionally, the sudden announcement by The Pirate Bay to kill their tracker has left people scrambling for trackers as an alternative to DHT.

Previously, the only way to check if such a tracker was down was to ask on a forum, IRC channel or news sites like TorrentFreak, hoping that someone knows the answer. Now, though, there is Trackon, a site that hopes to provide answers to these questions in a clear, concise and simple manner.

Trackon uses the Google AppEngine, just like its sister project Atrack. This means that initial costs are low and reliability of the site should be good – exactly what is needed when it’s reliability of sites being measured.

The site currently monitors 46 public trackers, including favorites such as OpenBittorrent, and DenisStalker. Even better it a offers a recent history of status checks and also shows if trackers support SSL, which is a boon to those looking for secure communications.

Uriel, the genius behind Trackon (and also Atrack) told TorrentFreak that his motivation was finding a way to make the BitTorrent infrastructure more decentralized and reliable, without actually requiring any changes to the protocol or clients.

“My conclusion was that a really easy to deploy tracker would make it possible for anyone to set-up and run their own trackers, either private or public. Combining that with Google’s AppEngine was just logical. Trackon came from there,” he explained.

Trackon is still in development and is having more features added as time goes on. Meanwhile, the number of public trackers out there is surprising, exceeding Uriel’s own expectations, “I thought at first there would only be about a dozen trackers, but it’s over fifty now,” he told us.

If nothing else, Trackon proves that the hydra is alive, and spawning trackers.

Source: Trackon, The BitTorrent Tracker Tracker

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/trackon-the-bittorrent-tracker-tracker-091117/feed/ 40 http://torrentfreak.com/common-bittorrent-dht-myths-091024/ http://torrentfreak.com/common-bittorrent-dht-myths-091024/#comments Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:25:01 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=16958 Source: Busting Common Trackerless Torrent Myths
]]> DHT has been included with many clients since it first debuted in the summer of 2005. however, over the 4 years of life, many myths and misunderstandings have been spread around. These can put people off using it and can give these users difficulties when a tracker goes down. Currently the Pirate Bay is popping on and offline, and Demonoid has been down for a week or two.

The main problem is that most people just don’t understand what DHT is, what it does, and how it works. Not really a surprise since the documentation and even the Wikipedia page are filled with technical jargon, and no simple explanation.  Without that basic understanding confusion is inevitable. We did explain DHT in our jargon piece back in 2006 but after 3 years, we decide to cover it again.

The easiest way to think about DHT is to imagine it as a form of ‘super tracker’, in some ways a lot like WinMX and Kazaa of old. A large ad-hoc network of peers pass on information requests about torrents without a central server, meaning no control or single point of failure. No information about the contents or even the names of torrents are passed around, making this legal and hard to shut down.




Myth: You must turn off DHT when you use private trackers.

Wrong — There is an element to a torrent that is called the ‘private flag’. It’s a small flag that marks to a client that the torrent is ‘private’ and disables any method of sharing peers (including DHT), except via the tracker. This flag also changes the hash, so peers on a non-flagged torrent could not connect to a flagged torrent in any case. Most private torrent sites check for the flag, and add it if missing when the torrent is initially uploaded to their site.




Myth: Certain clients leak DHT data and should be avoided.

Wrong (with one exception) — There are always going to be people that want control. When it comes to torrent sites (especially the private ones) they like to express their control through lists of clients you can and can’t use (a form of DRM) and sometimes give reasons to support this. An example would be this statement from a staff member at a private tracker:

Not all torrent clients respect the private flag. But if you are using a client like Vuze, uTorrent or similar if the private flag is on (set by the tracker) the DHT, peer exchange settings etc are ignored. However, if you are using something like BitComet, BitLord or their ilk they ignore the private flag so if you have DHT etc enabled it is going to be enabled no matter what.

This statement is completely false. All torrent clients that support DHT respect the flag. The flag is set by the torrent file, not the tracker (although the tracker can add the flag to the file, it’s still set by the torrent), and BitComet does NOT ignore the flag. The one exception is a single build of BitComet (0.60) that was available for 2 weeks at the end of 2005, and even then, was a fallback only if the tracker was unable to be contacted for a 30minute period. Bitlord is unable to leak to DHT, as it doesn’t use DHT at all.

If you see staff making claims like this, it’s a good indication that the staff is clueless, which might be an idea to leave that tracker. If they can’t get the basics right who knows when else is wrong. Of course, we ask those claiming other clients leak to let us know so we can test it.




Myth: You can be tracked by DHT / AntiP2P groups use DHT to find you

Unlikely — It’s much easier and simpler to use the tracker. Blocklists, used on your client and on the trackers, are generally ineffective and easily circumvented through the use of residential connections. Last year’s University of Washington study showed that they will send letters just based on tracker info.




Myth: DHT slows your system down

Generally not true — It can slow down your connection depending mainly on network hardware. The actual data used in running DHT is low, generally less than 1kilobyte a second. Some routers and modems, however, can have problems with DHT causing lockups and restarts if they run out of ram. This mostly happens with lower spec ‘home’ equipment (such as older Belkins, Netgears and D-links), or telco-provided hardware.




Myth: You need to connect to a tracker, before you can use DHT

Wrong — When DHT is enabled (certainly in uTorrent) it connects to a bootstrap node (such as router.utorrent.com or router.bittorrent.com for mainline, or dht.aelitis.com for Vuze) and uses that to enter the DHT ‘swarm’. It’s handed a set of DHT nodes and uses that to build up a small group of connected nodes. Those nodes are then used to get peers. No tracker is required at any time.




Myth: When enabled, it sends usage data back to [insert company]

Wrong — This is another case of people not knowing what they’re talking about. Generally they’re misinterpreting the bootstrap node connection for their client.

When the demonoid tracker was finally resurrected last year, many of it’s torrents were still active thanks mainly to DHT. DHT with Peer Exchange (PEX) is a very powerful addition to the torrenting world, and allows torrents to stay active, irrespective of the trackers stability or even existence. Also, Azureus/Vuze users, despite having their own DHT system, can join in using a mainline DHT plugin.

Should you use DHT? Not if you only use private trackers, but if you use public ones and your network hardware can cope, then yes. It can help reduce tracker load. If you have a question about DHT not answered here, then again, let us know.

Source: Busting Common Trackerless Torrent Myths

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/common-bittorrent-dht-myths-091024/feed/ 88 http://torrentfreak.com/3-strikes-makes-european-comeback-tour-091023/ http://torrentfreak.com/3-strikes-makes-european-comeback-tour-091023/#comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:22:16 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=18193 Source: 3-Strikes For Pirates Makes European Comeback Tour
]]> The threat of 3-strikes based legislation had been reduced in recent weeks, with strong protests in the UK and proposed legislation elsewhere meeting stiff opposition.

However, none of this stopped the lobby groups, or the politicians looking to push for the ruling.

In the EU, the amendment, which would protect against 3-strikes laws by requiring due judicial process to occur before any sanction (such as cutting off Internet access), has been substantially watered down. Meanwhile, in France the Constitutional Court has ruled in favor of a slightly modified version of HADOPI – their legislation which includes a 3-strikes sanction.

On Tuesday, the Parliament gave up on Amendment 138, which had been voted on twice by the assembly, gaining a majority both times. The amendment was supposed to protect the rights of citizens from being treated as guilty upon the accusations of an industry group, and punished based on the same. It read;

Applying the principle that no restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end-users, without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities, notably in accordance with Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union on freedom of expression and information, save when public security is threatened in which case the ruling may be subsequent.

Instead, they are now considering a version which does not guarantee the right to an effective and timely judicial review.

Christian Engstrom, the Pirate Party’s MEP, commented on the amendment in his blog. He included the differences in text that have been made since Tuesday (bold denotes added text, strike-through indicates removed) in a meeting between three negotiators for the European Parliament and representatives for the Council of Ministers.

The changes included the removal of the judicial guarantee, that any measures should come only after a fair an impartial procedure (and should now just ‘respect’ such things), and the ACTA-like inclusion of ‘National Security’ clauses.

He summarized things simply, saying: “It shows utter contempt for Parliament by totally ignoring everything it says. The Council plans to bypass Parliament and once and for all prove that it is they who make the decisions, end of story.”

Meanwhile, France’s highest Constitutional Court has approved a slightly modified version of HADOPI. While initially blocked last September, a change to require a judge to sign off on the disconnection action (rather than the Agency itself) has meant it passed the Court. However, such court measures will be ‘fast tracked’ rather than given full judicial process, a situation the New York Times describes as ‘similar to traffic violations’.

This has angered many, including (of course) the Pirate Party. Laurent Le Besnerais of the Parti Pirate and Pirate Party International called it “a huge blow for Internet Freedom.”

“In June 2009, this same Council declared that Internet access is a fundamental right which cannot be restricted without judicial process,” he told TorrentFreak. “Today, the council gives a judge the right and responsibility to pronounce a closure of Internet access to anyone suspected of having shared illegally. Furthermore, the suspect will have to prove his innocence, which creates a presumption of guilt.”

With the flip-flopping over these measures, it can only be seen as a greater boost for the European Pirate Parties in future elections. However, since much of the party works and draws its support online, there is the risk that members could start having their net connections cut off. With evidential standards so low, would it really be beyond the realms of possibility that political critics of these plans could end up being cut off at the say-so of those they oppose?

If all goes as planned the agency will be staffed next month, with letters starting in the new year, and terminations starting as soon as next summer. How long the law will stay once the innocent start being punished is harder to predict. As with IPRED, the people the law aims to deal with will just use seedboxes, VPNs, and open WiFi hotspots instead of their home connections.

Source: 3-Strikes For Pirates Makes European Comeback Tour

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/3-strikes-makes-european-comeback-tour-091023/feed/ 90 http://torrentfreak.com/parliamentary-comms-group-says-no-to-uk-3-strikes-091017/ http://torrentfreak.com/parliamentary-comms-group-says-no-to-uk-3-strikes-091017/#comments Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:25:55 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=18001 Source: Parliamentary Comms Group Says ‘No’ to UK 3-Strikes
]]> Recently there has been a series of blows against proposals for ‘graduated response’ or ‘three strikes’ measures in the UK for dealing with alleged illicit file-sharers.

This week alone we’ve had an Early Day Motion from a member of Lord Mandelson’s own party, and more recently ISPs have talked about the futility of the suggested legislation.

Mandelson reportedly started pushing it after a meeting with Hollywood mogul David Geffen, and was apparently uninterested in the whole situation prior to the meeting, although that claim was flatly denied.

Now, the All Party Parliamentary Communications Group (apComms) has released its own findings to its more broad consultation, and it’s not good reading for 3-strikes proponents.

There were significantly fewer responses than for other similar consultations, although the scope was much wider. It was also much more open, without assumptions or leading questions. It was, in fact, fairly neutral and seemed to be concerned with gathering information, rather than trying to solicit support for a predetermined policy. Most appropriately, it was titled “Can we keep our hands off the net?”

The topics covered included dealing with ‘bad traffic’ (which includes copyright infringement, P2P and botnets), behavioral advertising (such as Phorm), online privacy and child pornography procedures. Finally it dealt with the issue of who should foot the bill for Internet traffic, and whether network neutrality should be codified. The first and last questions are of particular concern to TorrentFreak, and the conclusions make for interesting reading.

On the subject of P2P and copyright enforcement, they came to the following conclusions;

58. We conclude that much of the problem with illegal sharing of copyrighted material has been caused by the rightsholders, and the music industry in particular, being far too slow in getting their act together and making popular legal alternatives available.
59. We do not believe that disconnecting end users is in the slightest bit consistent with policies that attempt to promote eGovernment, and we recommend that this approach to dealing with illegal file-sharing should not be further considered.
60. We think that it is inappropriate to make policy choices in the UK when policy options are still to be agreed by the EU Commission and EU Parliament in their negotiations over the “Telecoms Package”. We recommend that the Government terminate their current policy-making process, and restart it with a new consultation once the EU has made its decisions.

Network Neutrality and actual bandwidth availability was also a concern, with the following recommendations being made;

212. We recommend that Ofcom keep the issue of “network neutrality” under review and include a section in each annual report that indicates whether there are any signs of change.
214. We recommend that Ofcom regulate to require ISPs to advertise a minimum guaranteed speed for broadband connections.

We know that many of our UK readers will be happy with the last recommendation, especially after a study by OFCOM earlier this year found that many subscribers were seeing an average of 40% of their connection’s advertised speed. A more appropriate advertised speed will also prevent many BitTorrent clients from being setup for speeds they can’t actually achieve.

If you thought that such open minded, clearheaded and competent recommendations couldn’t have come from elected officials, well, the good news is they’re not all luddites. ApComms’s Joint-Chairman, Derek Wyatt MP was formerly Head of Programmes at WireTV, before becoming the director of BSkyB’s Computer Channel (later ‘.tv‘), leaving when he was elected to government. Other executives of apComms include a former BT researcher (Chris Mole MP), and Dr Nick Palmer MP, who has studied AI at MIT.

An extremely well-educated and technologically literate group making these recommendations should help carry some weight. Whether or not it will be enough to convince the Peter Mandelson’s and Sion Simon‘s of the government, remains to be seen.

The full report is available here.

Source: Parliamentary Comms Group Says ‘No’ to UK 3-Strikes

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/parliamentary-comms-group-says-no-to-uk-3-strikes-091017/feed/ 51 http://torrentfreak.com/uk-3-strikes-mp-ignorant-on-filesharing-091003/ http://torrentfreak.com/uk-3-strikes-mp-ignorant-on-filesharing-091003/#comments Sat, 03 Oct 2009 13:05:43 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=17634 Source: UK 3-Strikes MP Ignorant on File-Sharing
]]> Sion Simon, a Labour MP from Birmingham and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Creative Industries at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, spoke out earlier this week at the National Labour Party Conference in Brighton on the proposed UK 3-strikes laws.

“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

Source: UK 3-Strikes MP Ignorant on File-Sharing

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/uk-3-strikes-mp-ignorant-on-filesharing-091003/feed/ 68 http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-books-moderate-success-in-german-elections-090929/ http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-books-moderate-success-in-german-elections-090929/#comments Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:11:45 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=17478 Source: Pirate Party Books Moderate Success In German Elections
]]> Going into the elections, the ‘Piratenpartei’ must have been on a high. In local elections two weeks ago members of the Pirate Party were elected onto the city councils of Munster and Aachen, and just one week ago, in youth elections, they scooped almost 10% of the youth vote.

Despite all this, 2% was the best they could achieve in the Federal elections, although in itself, that is still not an easy figure to achieve. However, it is short of the 5% barrier required to enter the German Parliament. It also means that the seat they gained from the defection of Jörg Tauss has been lost.

Yet positives remain. Like their Swedish brethren, the Pirate Party is now the largest outside of government, eclipsing many established ‘broad spectrum’ parties. It also qualifies for federal funding, which at 0.85 Euros per vote nets the party somewhere in the region of €720,000 (or $1,050,000 US) from their 845,904 votes, plus additional money to match 38% of contributions and membership fees.

Perhaps the biggest accomplishment is that the party has gained more votes in this election than the entire movement has before. It got a very strong showing with first-time voters, with Business Week reporting up to 13% of that group went Pirate. The party has also grown its membership tenfold in just a few months, to around 10,000. Not as fast as seen in Sweden, but still impressive.

Jens Seipenbusch, national party chairman, was upbeat about the results. “Our new style of politics touches the nerve of the people in Germany. We will continue to bank on participatory politics and to fight for civil rights online as well as offline.”

While it’s easy to focus on the negative, the positive is there as well. The party doubled its vote percentage in just a few months. With the funding, the rapid growth of members and the high profile the party has received in the media, it can only be a matter of time before the party gains more seats.

Source: Pirate Party Books Moderate Success In German Elections

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-books-moderate-success-in-german-elections-090929/feed/ 55 http://torrentfreak.com/uk-pirates-face-disconnection-isps-object-090826/ http://torrentfreak.com/uk-pirates-face-disconnection-isps-object-090826/#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:39:49 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=16523 Source: UK Pirates Face Disconnection, ISPs Object
]]> When it comes to confusion and contradiction, the UK’s Digital Britain report is in a league of its own. Just days after denying the reports that Lord Mandelson would be toughening things up when dealing with alleged copyright infractions, it turns out that it’s true. Also, despite assurances last year that the whole process would have a factual basis, that also turns out to be a lie.

It would seem that wherever Peter Mandelson goes, controversy soon follows. He’s resigned from the British cabinet twice before over allegations of improprieties, so he’s just the sort of person qualified to head up the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) (or the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) as it was renamed in June).

The timing is seen as suspicious by some, coming just days after he took a holiday with David Geffen. A government source told The Times “Until the past week Mandelson had shown little personal interest in the Digital Britain agenda. Suddenly Peter returned from holiday and effectively issued this edict that the regulation needs to be tougher.”

The proposal, released in a statement by the BIS today says that waiting to see how the previous recommendation – of seeing how things were going over the next few years, with technological measures to come into force by 2012 – were going to be too slow. As such, they want to push forward with the measures, even if unnecessary, as they make clear:

Previously, it had been proposed that Ofcom would undergo a detailed process in order to ascertain that technical measures were required. With this approach, the earliest that measures could come into play was during 2012. The Government has now reached the view that, if action was deemed necessary, this might be too long to wait given the pressure put on the creative industries by piracy. The new ideas outlined today would potentially allow action to be taken earlier. (emphasis added)

Of course, if action is NOT deemed necessary, if the facts to back up the claims can’t be found for instance, then much of the legislation requested by the copyright industries will not go ahead. That evidence would be hard to find, since at least two separate examinations of content industry figures have shown little to no impact on box office movie sales, or music sales. This may be why there is the sudden push for the legislation, based again on a claim of need, rather than facts.

The ISPs are up in arms about this as well, with Talktalk’s Andrew Heaney telling the BBC: “Disconnecting alleged offenders will be futile given that it is relatively easy for determined file-sharers to mask their identity or their activity to avoid detection.” They are rightly concerned with disconnecting the wrong people, based either on mis-identification by investigators, or the use of open/inadequately secured wifi spots.

The music industry is enthusiastic though, with the BPI happy. “Digital piracy is a serious problem and a real threat to the UK’s creative industries,” it said in a statement to the BBC, while yet again failing to release any data to back up their claims. “The solution to the piracy problem must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive,” it then says, omitting that these proposals are none of these, just as the 1865 Locomotive Act was not effective, proportionate or dissuasive to the take-up of the personal motor vehicle, or in protecting the railway and equine-based industries from the progress of technology.

Meanwhile, as one commenter indicates in a comment on the Digital Britain site, more people will be joining the UK Pirate Party, although the party currently says it’s experiencing only a slight increase in membership. Its members, however, are livid.

Stephen Timms, minister for Digital Britain also made the following statement: “We’ve been listening carefully to responses to the consultation this far, and it’s become clear there are widespread concerns that the plans as they stand could delay action, impacting unfairly upon rights holders. So we look forward to hearing views on our new ideas, which along with those already received, will help us determine the best way to tackle this complex challenge.”

Clearly he hasn’t been listening to the comments made by 6 million file-sharers in the UK, but there’s no harm in making him more aware. The consultation is open until September. So there’s still time to make your voice heard, but please, keep it civil and factual – even if the Content Industry can’t manage the second.

Source: UK Pirates Face Disconnection, ISPs Object

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/uk-pirates-face-disconnection-isps-object-090826/feed/ 92 http://torrentfreak.com/is-a-fair-p2p-trial-even-possible-part-2-090812/ http://torrentfreak.com/is-a-fair-p2p-trial-even-possible-part-2-090812/#comments Sat, 15 Aug 2009 16:26:13 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=15742 Source: Is a Fair P2P Trial Even Possible? Part 2
]]> We have previously explored the problems of getting a fair trial inside the courtroom. However, public perceptions and information around the world in general also affects a trial. In a civil case, the verdict goes to the person that most convinces the jury, and juries tend to believe what they ‘know’. The likelihood that what they ‘know’ is material published by, and on behalf of the complainant often doesn’t enter into peoples minds.

Perhaps the most insidious aspects of propaganda is that you often don’t know when you’re witnessing it. One of the easiest ways to define it is as something that presents a clear position on a topic, good and bad, with little reference to the facts in an attempt to sway a group of people into believing a certain thing. There are three examples of this to draw on. One is the term ‘intellectual property‘. It’s a term that infers that copyright is a property that can be owned, and by extension, can thus be ‘stolen’. In actuality, it is as its name suggests, a right of copying. However, the term ‘Intellectual Property’ continues. It’s also got the secondary aim of making it seem appropriate to lengthen terms, as by terming it property, and not a right to an action, it’s defined as an asset. Assets are easier to ‘protect’ than a right to do something, certainly over a monopoly-control of distribution.

The second is the association with ‘theft‘ and stealing. Copyrights can only be ‘stolen’ if the actual rights are taken by someone. That is, if the person who owns the right has the right taken from them by someone else. That is also why copyright cases are not theft cases, although cases treated as such would actually be better, as criminal cases have a lot fewer of the problems identified in part 1, as we have also pointed out in the past. It would also significantly reduce the penalties. As Prof. Lessig pointed out in Free Culture (Pg 190), under California law the biggest penalty for stealing a CD is $1,000 – for infringing the copyright of that same CD it’s $1,500,000 (assuming 10 tracks).

The third and most important, are the oft touted ‘loss figures’ and studies. Every month or two an industry group, or company paid by an industry group publishes a ‘losses due to piracy figure’ or other claim. These figures attempt to quantify the unknown (and unknowable) and give a number that can be used in statements. The problem with all of these numbers is that they’re guesswork and estimation, just dressed up nicely. It’s impossible to tell what people are doing, and how many are actually infringing copyright so any figure on the amount of copyright infringement is just a guess. Then there is the question of how much that infringement impacts sales. So far industry data says it reduces sales, while independent studies show it either doesn’t affect them, or increases them. However, they’re not consistent on how much effect there is – some industry studies vastly contradict others with their values for the same thing (such this example)

Nor is this a new thing. Who can forget then MPAA president Jack Valenti calling the VCR the ‘Boston Strangler’ of the film companies. A few short years later that same Boston Strangler was providing those film companies with the majority of their income. The same thing happens time and time again, player pianos, radio, cable TV, the VCR, and now computers and the Internet. Like Chicken little, the sky didn’t fall down the last few times, and is unlikely to now for those companies, if, as before, they adapt and embrace the new technologies. Else they’ll go the way of the big train companies when 40-ton trucks became common, or saddlers and livery stables when the car was made affordable; an anachronism of old technology.

Of course, at the end of the day it comes down to the law. Again, there’s a problem. When you have politicians that are paid heavily by the copyright industry, or judges that are part of an industry group, then the laws are not going to have a firm basis in reality, nor will there be a fair and impartial evaluation of those laws. In some cases, prominent members of the music industry have been let off their crimes by court systems, such as in Nashville where Universal exec Ken Robold and singer-songwriter John Hiatt have had their traffic offenses dismissed.

Given everything we’ve covered, at least briefly, it’s clear that a fair trial when it comes to P2P will be impossible to be had any time soon.

Source: Is a Fair P2P Trial Even Possible? Part 2

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/is-a-fair-p2p-trial-even-possible-part-2-090812/feed/ 80 http://torrentfreak.com/is-a-fair-p2p-trial-possible-090810/ http://torrentfreak.com/is-a-fair-p2p-trial-possible-090810/#comments Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:47:58 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=9154 Source: Is a Fair P2P Trial Possible?
]]> David and Goliath metaphors are often thrown around, as an example of the little guy fighting back, and nowhere is this more appropriate than in copyright litigation, especially those cases centering around p2p. On one side, you have the defendant, who often has no resources at all, and on the other, the multi-billion dollar entertainment industry. In such cases, the law should win out, but given such a drastic mismatch, is a fair trial even possible?

There are two main areas to look at, one is within a court case, the other is outside the courtroom, and away from specific cases in general. First we’ll look at inside the courtroom, and we’ll look at more general issues in part 2 of this article.

The litigation that takes place in cases such as this, is a far cry from those typified in LA Law or Boston Legal. In those shows, the lawyers are the heroes, and to have the stars of the show using the sort of tactics used in these cases would have viewers reaching for the remotes. As was covered last summer, the actual process is riddled with abusive practices, one of the key ones being that the first most defendants hear about it, is when they’ve effectively already been sued once (as a John Doe), and lost (because of ex parte discovery), and the industry lawyers are sending threatening letters directly to people, telling them to pay up or else. Of course, it’s not just in the US this happens, it’s happened a lot in the UK with Davenport Lyons and ACS:Law.

Now, we mentioned resources, and if you have not caved in to a demand to accept guilt and pay up, then resources are essential. As a defendant in a civil case, you have to defend yourself from accusations. If you don’t show up, you lose – this is apparently what happened with Ms. Barwinska. Now, they’re under no obligation to actually file a lawsuit, but can continue to threaten to do so pretty much until any applicable statute of limitations has expired, which can be years. In all that time they can continue to threaten, and so legal counsel might have to be retained, to respond, and failure to respond can be viewed negatively in some courts.

If it actually comes to a court case, then, it can get worse. Depositions, expert witnesses and paralegals for research all cost money, again money the plaintiff has, and the defendant often doesn’t. This was why the expert witness fund was set up and one reason the defense in the two Thomas trials were light on testimony. In the Tenenbaum case, defense expert witnesses were rejected, including Dr Johan Pouwelse, who has published on Kazaa and conducted the largest (2-years!) measurement of Bittorrent. He told TorrentFreak that it was “amazing how the plaintiffs in this case where allowed to let 3 record executives complain for hours and not let any professor take the stand in favour of Joel.”

Of course, at the end of the day it comes down to the jury. And often it ends up being down to how well an analogy can be made that describes the situation in a way that defines the lawyers position in the way that the jury can understand. The problem is any such analogy will be critically flawed, as it’s a technical issue, and anyone with knowledge of P2P systems, even as a user, tends to be rejected as a juror ‘for cause’. Thus the people left are generally technological novices, that believe the analogies to be accurate, or have an overestimation of the accuracy of the evidence (as seems to be a trend with ‘forensic evidence’ in cases these days). That’s how you have someone who has never used a computer saying they know someone’s lying about a technologically involved subject, as happened in the first Thomas case. Outside information (covered in part 2) only exacerbates that.

With all these things against a defendant, can there ever be a fair P2P trial?

Source: Is a Fair P2P Trial Possible?

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/is-a-fair-p2p-trial-possible-090810/feed/ 103 http://torrentfreak.com/riaas-incompetent-pirate-snoopers-escape-prison-090717/ http://torrentfreak.com/riaas-incompetent-pirate-snoopers-escape-prison-090717/#comments Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:16:38 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=15274 Source: RIAA’s Incompetent Pirate Snoopers Escape Prison
]]> MediaSentry, a long time partner of the RIAA in their numerous court cases against alleged pirates where it was responsible for collecting evidence, has been criticized by various parties. The company’s evidence gathering techniques have been described by experts “as factually erroneous”, “unprofessional” and “borderline incompetent”.

In addition, MediaSentry is lacking the proper license required in some states to actually perform the evidence gathering. Michigan is such a state, which spurred a father of an alleged file-sharer to dispute the legitimacy of RIAA’s (former) partner so the evidence provided by them can be discounted.

If found acting as a Private Investigator within the state, the company committed a criminal act. That would have a significant negative impact on any evidence they provided to a court case, indeed it might disqualify it entirely. Without the evidence of the alleged infringement provided by MediaSentry, there is no case to answer.

Enter the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth’s (DELEG) Bureau of Commercial Services (BCS). They regulate and maintain the lists of professional licenses in the state. Their investigation has turned up no license, but more critically, no evidence of payment from the RIAA either. Without that, there’s no business being performed, which means there’s no need for a license. As such, the BCS has closed (thanks to Ray Beckerman) their investigation.

However, while the case is closed for now, the letter does say it can be reopened if new evidence on payments is produced. Since the case came out of a current lawsuit (SONY Music Entertainment v. Kruger) it shouldn’t be hard to get evidence of the business relationship admitted into evidence. Once that’s done, MediaSentry might be in some hot water.

As the BCS later states, “The Court may impose a civil fine of up to $25,000 for a violation of the Act. The Court may also find a person practicing without a license guilty of a felony punishable by imprisonment.”

MediaSentry’s pirate snooping amateurs might be working for free – but that’s unlikely – as we all know the RIAA’s position on getting anything for free…

Source: RIAA’s Incompetent Pirate Snoopers Escape Prison

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/riaas-incompetent-pirate-snoopers-escape-prison-090717/feed/ 43 http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-enters-the-german-parliament-090621/ http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-enters-the-german-parliament-090621/#comments Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:35:04 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=14426 Source: Pirate Party Enters the German Parliament
]]> When it was said by some that the Swedish win in the European elections would act as a catalyst, nobody would have thought that the results would start to show so quickly. Two weeks after getting 230,000 votes in the EU elections, the Pirate Party has gained a seat in the German Federal Parliament.

Politician Jörg Tauss left the SPD yesterday over concerns about Internet censorship. The German Pirate Party had been running a petition against an attempt by the German government to have a censorship list, which, although at first applied to child pornography, has already been considered for expansion to cover other areas.

Faced with this censorship system, which has not been proven to do anything to protect children or do anything except stifle free speech, Tauss decided to leave his party and join the Pirate Party instead.

In a statement the Pirate Party welcomes him into the party as “one of the most experienced politicians in the areas of education, research and new media,” and calls the defection the “culmination of a long chain of failures of the SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany) in the areas of civil rights in the digital age and shows a dramatic loss of their credibility inside and outside.”

However, there is also controversy as Tauss is currently under investigation over allegations that he was improperly in possession of child porn images. Tauss claims that such images were sent to him during the basis of an investigation into that subculture, in line with his official government work. Criminal charges on the possession of the images may be pending soon, with Die Welt quoting the prosecutor as saying charges will be brought “within a few weeks”.

Regardless, the Pirate Party is standing by Tauss, who has been a member of the parliament since 1994, at least until a determination of charges is announced. “As long as there will be no criminal conviction against Mr. Tauss, the Piratenpartei has no reason to question Mr. Tauss’ innocence and moral integrity.”

With their seat in the German Parliament the Pirate Party hopes to do something about the increased censorship of the Internet and abuse of copyright by multi-billion dollar companies.

Source: Pirate Party Enters the German Parliament

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-enters-the-german-parliament-090621/feed/ 79 http://torrentfreak.com/digital-britain-some-points-to-consider-090616/ http://torrentfreak.com/digital-britain-some-points-to-consider-090616/#comments Tue, 16 Jun 2009 04:04:07 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=14282 Source: Digital Britain – Some Points to Consider
]]> The UK Government will shortly publish its “Digital Britain” report, and based on hints and the interim report published earlier this year, it’s going to be, at the very least, ‘interesting reading’. Back when the responses were published 6 months ago, they were asked if they would be verifying data provided in submissions. Clare Keen, of the BERR press office assured us they would, saying

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.

Source: Digital Britain – Some Points to Consider

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/digital-britain-some-points-to-consider-090616/feed/ 50 http://torrentfreak.com/german-pirate-party-sets-course-for-european-parliament-090522/ http://torrentfreak.com/german-pirate-party-sets-course-for-european-parliament-090522/#comments Fri, 22 May 2009 09:00:36 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=13051 Source: German Pirate Party Sets Course For European Parliament
]]> The German Pirate Party (or Piratenpartei) is often overshadowed by the success and popularity of their Swedish brethren. Recently they were even removed and banned from a major German social networking site. They shouldn’t be discounted though, as they have every bit as much grit and determination as their Nordic associates, as one of their adverts for their European Election campaign shows.

TorrentFreak spoke with their lead candidate, Bavarian party chairman Andreas Popp, to discuss his views on the upcoming election.

What do you see as being the most important issue in the election?

Currently the most important issue in EU (but also national) politics are the civil rights. This includes the fight against the censorship of the Internet as well as against the transformation of our western societies into police states. IT, especially the Internet, plays a very important role in these topics. The politicians who are in power right now fear the Internet and are doing everything to get control over it, just like the content industry does. What makes these topics so important is the immediate danger we are facing. If we do not fight for our civil liberties now, we might just find ourselves in a new form of dictatorship.

What is your opinion of Commissioner McCreevy’s attempts to extend copyright terms in the EU?

This extension really was some kind of a joke. They said they wanted to enhance the financial situation of retired musicians. This is already strange, since while other people have to save money for their retirement, musicians get their pension for free by copyright. But then all the experts stated that musicians will not benefit from this extension, because they normally sell all their rights in buy-out-contracts. So only music labels benefit from the law. They passed it anyways.

What about copyright in general?

I think it would take too long to explain what needs to be changed here, but you can read about it on the program (english) page of our campaign site.

How many members does the German Pirate Party have right now, and has there been any boost from the Pirate Bay trial, as the Swedish party has seen?

Nationally, we just had our 1000th member. Yes, we have had a great boost during the last few weeks, but I cannot tell you if it is because of the Pirate Bay trial or because of the new censorship law.

Are you seeing the ‘older generations’ supporting the party in significant numbers, or is it mainly 18-30 year-olds?

Of course the generation of the “Digital Natives” are the main supporting group for the Pirate Party. But there are also a lot of people who are already out of their thirties and are supporting our activities. Even if you look at our list of candidates there are only three people who have not passed thirty yet. So I would say yes, there is a significant number of ‘older’ people supporting the pirates. I think the only difference is the medium we use to communicate. You can get in touch with the younger ones mostly through the net. The older ones are more likely to come and talk to you when you are standing on the street.

What is the method of election in Germany for the European Parliament?

It is basically the same as in our national elections. Each party nominates a list of candidates for the election and the citizens can put their cross next to one of the party. Germany has 99 seats in the EU parliament. These seats are divided proportionally among all parties with more than 5% of the total votes.

5% would be roughly how many votes?

There are about 60 million voters, but Germans are not really interested in EU elections so only about 50% of them are going to vote. So that might be round about 1.5 million votes to break the 5%-line. 50% is rather low compared to national or local elections, but the turnout is falling. People here get kind of annoyed with politics. The 60 million figure is about 10 years old, but there is a small difference to the national elections because citizens of other EU countries can register for voting in the EU elections in Germany too. It is a fair number to base things on though.

Some say you have little chance of making that 5% barrier, so why should people vote for you?

One of the most important chances in the EU elections is to get enough votes (0.5%) to qualify for public party funding. That is one of the things I like to tell all the people out there who do not want to vote for us, because they think we cannot make the 5% threshold. Even if we do not, qualifying for public funding would be a big step. One of the parties who gets public funding and is about the same size as we are, got around 80,000 Euro (about $108,000) last year – that would mean more than tripling our funds – and making it it possible to hire people for the administrative tasks, giving us more time for politics.

How much of an issue is funding in German elections?

It is a big issue. As a small party we do not get any public funding yet, so we have to get along with the money we get from our membership fees and donations. All of us are working unsalaried right now. Considering the organizational stuff that has to be done, we are limited in activity. If people want to make a donation, they can do so either to the national party, or directly to their state party. And if they cannot afford to donate money, voluntary helpers to do local work are always a big help.

The European elections take place in early June. The Germany party has a campaign website, www.piratenpartei.net

Source: German Pirate Party Sets Course For European Parliament

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/german-pirate-party-sets-course-for-european-parliament-090522/feed/ 46 http://torrentfreak.com/the-bbc-rehashes-mpaa-propaganda-090425/ http://torrentfreak.com/the-bbc-rehashes-mpaa-propaganda-090425/#comments Sat, 25 Apr 2009 12:19:58 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=12428 Source: The BBC Rehashes MPAA Propaganda
]]> Let’s get things straight from the off, we know that as a major television producer the BBC has a vested interest in the goings on of copyright policy. However, the BBC also has a mission to ‘inform, educate and entertain’, so when the March 31st edition of “Film 2009 with Jonathon Ross” featured a section talking about piracy, it was worth investigating.

The 5 minute segment focused on an MPAA funded study by a group called the RAND corporation. The study – which was widely criticized early last month – is back with a new coat of paint. This time though, it’s being broadcast to the movie-going British public with the appearance of solid fact, and has addressed none of the questions we brought up just after the study was released.

Perhaps the choice of interviewees might shed some light on ‘why?’ a bit better.

* Keiron Sharp – Director General, Federation Against Copyright Theft.
* John Woodward – CEO, UK Film Council.
* Gregory Treverton – Director of RAND, the study’s authors.
* Callum McDougall – Executive Producer for Quantum of Solace.

This selection seems to be a bit one sided to say the least. If you’re wondering what’s so special about the last name, it might be because you didn’t go to see that film at the cinema. Just before the film was played, a short advert voiced by Quantum star Daniel Craig, talked about how “piracy was costing people jobs”.

McDougall also gave a speech last winter to a UK copyright industry lobby group saying how the industry will fall “like a house of cards” if downloading continues at current levels. This same group, the Industry Trust for IP Awareness, tried to push much the same message on terrorism and piracy almost 5 years ago.

One of our readers was angered by the bias of the segment and wrote a complaint to the BBC. After a few weeks of waiting a reply came back from BBC Complaints, and it was none too satisfying.

Thank you for your e-mail regarding ‘Film 2009 with Jonathan Ross’ as broadcast on 31 March.

I note you felt the report on this programme about copyright theft wasn’t adequately balanced as it only featured interviews with people from the film industry. I appreciate you felt we allowed a distorted view of this issue to be portrayed and note you have strong views regarding this matter.

This report focused in on a legitimate problem for both the film industry and the authorities as they try to tackle what is an ever increasing and profitable criminal activity. We feel the report outlined the laws surrounding the issue of film piracy adequately and that the interviewees from the film industry were entirely appropriate people to comment on the problem.

Impartiality is the cornerstone of all our output, and we feel this report was fully balanced in it’s coverage of copyright theft. Nevertheless I appreciate our audience has a wide range of opinions and inevitably this means that not every viewer will agree with the content of every programme we broadcast. We know all our editorial decisions are subjective and we’d never expect our audience to agree with every decision we make.

With this in mind that I’d like to take this opportunity to assure you that I’ve recorded your comments, including that you believe this topic deserves a more in depth investigation, onto our audience log. This is an internal daily report of audience feedback which is circulated to many BBC staff including senior management, producers and channel controllers.

The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions about future programming and content.

Thanks again for contacting us.

Regards

Liam Boyle
BBC Complaints

Of course, there’s also a fine piece of irony in this show. The preceding segment was about a film called ‘The Boat That Rocked‘, a film about a 60′s pirate radio station. The irony is that it’s written and directed by one Richard Curtis. The same Richard Curtis that last year co-signed a letter to The Times urging ISPs to stop piracy.

It seems it’s only ok to profit from piracy, if you’re making a film about it.

UPDATE: The video of the segment is now available.

Source: The BBC Rehashes MPAA Propaganda

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/the-bbc-rehashes-mpaa-propaganda-090425/feed/ 102 http://torrentfreak.com/utorrent-is-going-to-make-money-090422/ http://torrentfreak.com/utorrent-is-going-to-make-money-090422/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:23:49 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=12343 Source: uTorrent Is Going to Make Money With a Toolbar
]]> The current economic situation is affecting everyone, and high technology companies are no exception. We’ve previously reported how BitTorrent Inc. had made layoffs and closed their Torrent Entertainment Network in recent months, in an attempt to cut costs and stay in business.

This February, the company went on to Google powered torrent search to the uTorrent website to make a few extra bucks, and they’re still looking for additional sources of revenue. This is where Ask.com comes in with their browser toolbar that is used to monetize other P2P clients as well.

Simon Morris, Vice President of product management at BitTorrent Inc. said that the toolbar will be included in new downloads of uTorrent 1.8.2. He assured people that it would be optional though, and that the executable will not have any size increase beyond the download option page. Also, we were told that those doing an upgrade will not be prompted about the bar.

Of course, this new ‘feature’ will fuel speculation by some that it carries on with the ‘MPAA spying’ which some have accused BitTorrent of doing since it bought the uTorrent client, and leads a small groups of people to continue using old versions. To date, we’ve yet to observe any ‘callhomes’ or similar that match any of those accusations.

Simon addressed these concerns telling TorrentFreak: “We are NOT on a path to do anything evil with the user community to make a quick profit. I know you only have our word on this, but it’s not hard to see that we have no chance of achieving our objectives if we alienate the very people on who the popularity of our software depends.”

While browser toolbars have sometimes gained a reputation as being a malware vector, this is usually due to 3rd party advertising. The toolbars generally make money though the search traffic that is generated by its users, and that is also the reason why most torrents sites – The Pirate Bay and Mininova included – now offer their own toolbars.

What BitTorrent inc. is aiming for is simply an extra influx of cash. What it is not looking to do is annoy their users, a point Simon is firm on. “To be very clear – uTorrent is very popular free BitTorrent software – the only thing we hope to change here is to make it even more popular. We hope the community will continue to support us in our efforts,” he told TorrentFreak.

If clients are to continue to develop, then with a growing shortage of venture capital there needs to be other ways to generate income. If the addition of one simple installer option about a browser toolbar means that uTP can be funded to completion (obsoleting many traditional throttling methods) is that really such a bad thing?

Source: uTorrent Is Going to Make Money With a Toolbar

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/utorrent-is-going-to-make-money-090422/feed/ 100 http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-president-to-be-thrown-out-090402/ http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-president-to-be-thrown-out-090402/#comments Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:24:43 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=11634 Source: MPAA President to be Thrown Out
]]> Glickman, head honcho at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), is in an unenviable position. As head of the MPAA he helped lead the organization into a crusade against millions of people around the world, pushing strategies which can, and often were described as draconian.

Glickman’s departure comes as many see current MPAA tactics starting to backfire. In the important teen and twenties demographics the MPAA’s messages are not getting through, and in many cases are driving resentment against them. The negative PR generated by The Pirate Bay case, initiated after intense pressure was put on the Swedish government by the MPAA (via the White House) has also worked against them, as have various pushes globally to get ISPs to agree to a 3-strikes (or ‘graduated response’) policy. Others claim that Glickman’s leadership has been lackluster, his public speaking gigs ‘bad’ and ‘boring’, and hint that the short contract extension is because of this.

MPAA’s Dan Glickman speaking (yawn)



Of course, there is also precedent for the head of the MPAA being let go after embarrassing or damaging public relations activities. Glickman’s predecessor, Valenti, retired not long after a showdown between the MPAA and studios over an MPAA screener ban in late 2003. In that case the MPAA backed down after a court injunction went against them, and before a massively damaging antitrust lawsuit could be brought.

In the last few years, the MPAA has become the source of much derision. In choosing a successor for Glickman, the selectors will have to look hard to find someone able to bring the industry into the 21st century (or even the latter half of the 20th) and recapture the trust and credibility of the general populace. Meanwhile, to Glickman, we utter the words made famous by MPAA member NBC, “You’re Fired!”

Source: MPAA President to be Thrown Out

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-president-to-be-thrown-out-090402/feed/ 53 http://torrentfreak.com/warner-bros-acquires-the-pirate-bay-090401/ http://torrentfreak.com/warner-bros-acquires-the-pirate-bay-090401/#comments Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:42:59 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=11589 Source: Warner Bros. Acquires The Pirate Bay
]]> The deal, worth over $13 billion (10 billion euros) came about after the recent performance at the Pirate Bay trial gave strong indications that the judgment would go against Warner Bros. For the Hollywood movie studio, it seems that acquiring The Pirate Bay was the only option left.

In the press release, both groups gave a positive outlook to the deal. “The Pirate Bay team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Warner Bros’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” said Jim Kjeyzer, Chief Executive Officer of Warner Bros.”

Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm was similarly forward looking saying “Our community has played a vital role in changing the way that people consume media, creating a new hip culture. By joining forces with Warner Bros, we can benefit from its global reach and technology leadership to deliver a more comprehensive entertainment experience for our users and to create new opportunities for our partners.”

A press conference will be held later today to discuss the finer aspects of the acquisition. The conference will be broadcasted live on the Internet and details for access to the webcast are included in the press release.

How the Pirate Bay’s users will deal with this deal is the only wild-card. Will it be another Exeem, or will it blossom into something powerful and progressive. Only time will tell.

The Pirate Bay’s new love advertised on their homepage



Source: Warner Bros. Acquires The Pirate Bay

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/warner-bros-acquires-the-pirate-bay-090401/feed/ 405 http://torrentfreak.com/kiwi-isp-already-disconnecting-alleged-pirates-090318/ http://torrentfreak.com/kiwi-isp-already-disconnecting-alleged-pirates-090318/#comments Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:53:01 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=10944 Source: Kiwi ISP Already Disconnecting Alleged Pirates
]]> The entertainment industry has lobbied extensively for a “guilty on accusation” process for years now. Last year they had a breakthrough when New Zealand enacted the first such law, commonly referred to as Section92. It went largely unnoticed until the media picked it up last year, but it quickly spawned a lobby group of its own.

Around the same time there was an election in New Zealand and a major change in government, with the then-ruling Labour Party losing out to the National Party. One of those losers was the bill’s champion, Judith Tizard.

With a change of government comes a change in views, and late last month New Zealand Prime Minister John Key announced that the law would be delayed until a workable solution is found.

For many thousands of Kiwi’s, however, disconnection upon accusation is already a reality. One ISP, WorldXChange, has already implemented a Secton92-esque policy for its customer base; one it claims might actually be more draconian.

According to the New Zealand Herald, WorldXChange, which has approximately 20,000 customers, has already initiated their own version of ’3 strikes and you’re out”. The Herald spoke with a WorldXChange customer who said their connection was terminated last year after an allegation of copyright infringement was made to Xnet (WorldXChange’s broadband service). After contacting customer services, they learned that their connection had been terminated because the ISP had received an allegation that the customer’s IP was linked to file-sharing that infringed copyright.

“They said that they’d reinstate my Internet, but that if they got one more [accusation] it would be cut off permanently – two strikes, you are out.”

A spokesperson for WorldXChange confirmed that such a policy was in place, but said it was 3 strikes, not 2. However, WorldXChange will not be terminating commercial customers in this manner, only residential ones – undoubtedly because residential customers are less likely to sue WorldXChange than a commercial concern, who could easily have their business turned upside down by an unwarranted disconnection.

It might be a a different story if media-groups (and their enforcement contractors) could be trusted to make accurate, well researched claims when it comes to allegations of infringement, but we all know that is not always the case.

Meanwhile, the debate amongst other NZ ISPs has stalled with the withdrawal of TelstraClear (NZ’s second biggest telecom company) from talks regarding Section92, stating it doesn’t want to harm customers. The law has generated intense debate all over New Zealand and now has an uncertain future. If the law is repealed, or struck down though, it is entirely possible that Xnet’s policy will stay in effect, at least until the sound of customers flocking to their competitors – voluntarily or after being ‘terminated’ – gets too much to bear.

On a lighter note though, WorldXChange does seem to have mastered irony. WorldXChange states on the ‘about us‘ section of their website “To us, the key stakeholders are our customers”. Meanwhile Xnet has a package aimed squarely at bandwidth-hungry BitTorrent users.

Source: Kiwi ISP Already Disconnecting Alleged Pirates

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/kiwi-isp-already-disconnecting-alleged-pirates-090318/feed/ 61 http://torrentfreak.com/musictank-fishes-for-online-music-solutions-090312/ http://torrentfreak.com/musictank-fishes-for-online-music-solutions-090312/#comments Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:43:24 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=10763 Source: MusicTank Fishes for Online Music Solutions
]]> With the Gowers report in 2006, and the recent piracy consultation, it might seem like the UK government is at the forefront of trying to bring copyright laws into the 21st Century. Yet, if it is ignored, the information is worthless, so it’s important to keep the government reminded. This, then, appears to be the rationale behind MusicTank’s report, “Let’s Sell Recorded Music”.

MusicTank, which describes itself as “a business development network for the UK music industry” formed the events around a simple premise,that “The creation of viable alternatives to unlicensed file sharing” has “the potential to produce the most satisfactory outcome for all stakeholders, including consumers.” This report features the conclusions from that event.

Much of the focus is positive as well, with strong points being made about the quality available from online services, their price comparison to physical sales and the worry ISPs share over the slippery slope of blocking content. However, one of the best summations of the current state of music and the Internet comes from Playlouder‘s Paul Sanders:

“The music business is putting a lot of effort into shouting at ISPs and comparatively little into selling them music”

This cuts to the core of the problem. No amount of Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) will change things if the entertainment industries are too busy complaining about others not doing what the industries think they should be doing, whilst those same industries are not doing what the customers think they should be doing.

On the other side of the coin though, there are major issues that barely get mentioned. Wrongful identification of copyright infringers – a topic we have covered extensively, with many examples in the past year alone – gets a single mention on page 9, from Carphone Warehouse representative Andrew Heaney, although he did note that it may be an infringement of consumer rights. However, that it gets only half a paragraph, while the quality and cost issue gets a page, is not encouraging.

The report as a whole highlights the problems facing everyone on all sides, but skimps on the consumer-side somewhat, while music industry claims are given somewhat exaggerated credence, despite the continued lack of supporting evidence. However, like last month’s Ipoque report, it seems that there is more balance being given to reports on this subject. Whether the people at Rand take note is a different matter.

The problem is, though, with major consumer issues given such quick mention, and with the many luminaries including the man behind the MoU – Secretary of State for Culture, Andy Burnham MP – present and participating, the issues that are not deemed very important in this report, may not be deemed as important to those involved. It may end up that that the unsubstantiated claims of loss by the music industry are deemed more important than the rights of citizens, and that’s not good for anyone.

Source: MusicTank Fishes for Online Music Solutions

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/musictank-fishes-for-online-music-solutions-090312/feed/ 9 http://torrentfreak.com/economists-abolish-copyrightpatents-save-the-economy-090310/ http://torrentfreak.com/economists-abolish-copyrightpatents-save-the-economy-090310/#comments Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:45:46 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=10731 Source: Economists: Abolish Copyright & Patents to Save the Economy
]]> Press releases from the MPAA and RIAA often emphasize how much the extension of copyright terms helps employment and assists the economy, but it’s their job to push this angle.

It’s when independent experts say that extending terms hurts the economy and stifles innovation that people should sit up and take notice. All too often though, such experts are ignored because they are just people that know the subject, rather than fund politicians campaign contributions. Moreover, they focus on facts and case histories, rather than vague associations or made-up figures.

Two such experts are Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, economists at the Washington University in St Louis. Boldrin, chairman of the university economics department, points out that what goes by the name ‘Intellectual Property’ is in fact “an intellectual monopoly that hinders rather than helps the competitive free market regime that has delivered wealth and innovation to our doorsteps.”

“From a public policy view, we’d ideally like to eliminate patent and copyright laws altogether,” says Levine, the John H. Biggs Distinguished Professor of Economics. “There’s plenty of protection for inventors and plenty of protection and opportunities to make money for creators. It’s not that we see this as some sort of charitable act that people are going to invent and create things without earning money. Evidence shows very strongly there are lots of ways to make money without patents and copyright.”

In a short video clip, Levine states that copyright shouldn’t been seen as a charitable act, which is a lesson Commissioner McCreevy needs to learn. Also, he states that Intellectual Monopoly is the more appropriate term, and that the property label is a recently-given propaganda title, a subject Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation has covered in the past.

The views of the economists are presented in their new book, “Against Intellectual Monopoly”, where they suggest that the copyright and patent systems in the US should at least be brought back into line with their constitutional establishment – that of promoting the progress of science and the useful arts. In the book, they put the case quite simply – “In the decades to come, sustaining economic progress will depend, more and more, on our ability to progressively reduce and eventually eliminate intellectual monopoly.”

It might be that the Pirate Party has some intellectual support for their positions, and perhaps a Missouri party will soon be in the making.

Source: Economists: Abolish Copyright & Patents to Save the Economy

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/economists-abolish-copyrightpatents-save-the-economy-090310/feed/ 71 http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-study-links-film-piracy-to-gangs-and-terrorists-090304/ http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-study-links-film-piracy-to-gangs-and-terrorists-090304/#comments Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:30:23 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=10580 Source: MPAA Study Links Piracy to Gangs and Terrorists
]]> On reading the report’s summary, there is a strong wave of deja-vu. It hardly seems like 4 years have passed similar claims put out by a UK industry group were debunked. Worse still, the same old tricks are being used again to cloud the issue. The only difference is that instead of just concentrating on the situation in UK and Ireland, they’ve now gone global.

The MPAA funded report report titled ‘Film Piracy, Organized Crime, and Terrorism’ claims that terrorist groups use film piracy to finance their activities, while organized gangs see it as a significant revenue stream. Selling pirated goods is a ‘low-risk, high-profit enterprise’ which attracts criminals of all sorts according to the report. And, as if that is not bad enough, in some areas the influence of these pirating gangs extends into law enforcement and political leaders, who are bought, intimidated, or induced to create “protected spaces” where crime flourishes.

Something that jumped out during the first glance at the report is the blurring of terms. On page 3 of the report, one of the reasons things can, and are, overstated is explained as a footnote.

“The terms “piracy” and “counterfeiting” are used interchangeably in this report, although they can mean different things.”

Unfortunately for the study, they do mean VERY different things. ‘Piracy’ in this context tends to refer mostly to digitally representable items, while counterfeit goods can run the gamut from aircraft parts, to cigarettes. In France, you can’t sell certain brands of handbag on eBay easily, because they might be counterfeit. Fake aircraft parts (which don’t meet specs) are a major problem for the airline industry (also counterfeiting) and fake cigarettes are a commonly seized item at international borders. If you want another example, just look no further than your spam folder – count the number of Viagra, and other medications you are offered – all counterfeit.

It only goes downhill from there. Early in the report, it moves on to talk about definitions of organized crime, including some that are so loose it’s hard to see anything except a lone person’s opportunistic crime as being ‘organized’. In fact, by the definitions given, the RIAA may be an organised crime gang, or the UMP party in France, making 3-strike Sarkozy, the head of a crime syndicate.

Digression aside, the case studies that underpin these findings also fail to pass scrutiny. The very first one mentions a seizure of 9400 discs in a shipment. Using a standard weight of a DVD (60g, with box), it comes to about half a ton, and assuming each disc can be sold for $10 (a high price) that’s only $94,000. A kilo of cocaine has a higher street value (about $160,000 right now, according to Cleveland Police), and is much easier to transport. In addition, drugs don’t tend to suffer from the ‘do it yourself’ aspect that gives sites like the Pirate Bay and Mininova such heavy traffic. No value is ever given for the ‘profit’ made either, only..

The combined proceeds from CD/DVD piracy and drug sales were estimated, for the purpose of assigning asset forfeiture, at $3 million.

Throughout many of the case studies listed, there is little hard evidence to actually link crimes. One cites packages arriving at a location containing copied DVDs, and when the police arrived, several men with false papers attempted to run. This leads the author to the assumption of using immigrants to work a copying operation, despite the only evidence mentioned being a single person trafficked.

If movies are the easy, safe and profitable way, as the report suggests, then someone’s not telling these gangs. A little chart is even produced, which lists gangs worldwide and the work they’re involved in.  There are no prizes for guessing that they all apparently participate in DVD copying, but more surprisingly, its the only activity they all share.

The true purpose of the report is of course to force authorities worldwide to do something about piracy, or criminal gangs and terrorist groups will take over. We have no doubt that the MPAA will cite this study in nearly every press release they issue from now on, and bring it onto the political agenda. Here are a few recommendations the report gives.

* Piracy should be made a priority offense within anti-gang strategies.
* Laws should be enacted to grant investigators greater authority to sustain investigations, conduct surveillance, and obtain search warrants.
* Key piracy cases should be fought in the organized-crime or money-laundering divisions of prosecutors’ offices.
* Governments should share intelligence with industry-led anti-piracy efforts.

It is likely that the MPAA will use these findings to get tougher anti-piracy laws. This wouldn’t really be a problem if it would only affect commercial piracy. However, as a side-effect people might have to prove that the music on their iPod is legit when they go through customs, and at home their ISP might be looking into their download behavior.

Unsurprisingly, a large percentage of sources given in footnotes, happen to be the very groups that have funded the story, the MPA(A) and FACT, which should seriously dent the credibility of the report. However, it is to be expected that this report will be given the same credibility as other MPAA-financed studies, despite their dubiousness. As a result, expect more laws to tackle this ‘threat’, which will only ever be used against everyday citizens, and that’s just how the likes of the MPAA like it.

Source: MPAA Study Links Piracy to Gangs and Terrorists

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-study-links-film-piracy-to-gangs-and-terrorists-090304/feed/ 196 http://torrentfreak.com/kiwis-delay-draconian-file-sharing-law-090223/ http://torrentfreak.com/kiwis-delay-draconian-file-sharing-law-090223/#comments Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:12:40 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=9930 Source: Kiwis Delay Draconian File-Sharing Law
]]> First, a quick recap. Last year, the New Zealand government passed 3-strike legislation, aimed at having copyright infringers thrown off the Internet, based only on the accusations of those claiming copyright infringement.

Earlier this month a code of practice was drafted by the copyright holders and ISPs which should outline the manner in which the new Section 92 ’3 Strikes’ regime should be handled by the ISPs. However, the parties involved couldn’t agree on the content of the code and Prime Minister John Key has just announced that the law has been delayed until a workable solution can be found. If the parties involved can’t reach an agreement, the law might be changed, he noted.

Most of the opposition is worried about the “Guilty Upon Accusation’ part of the law, and rightly so. Regular readers know how shoddy anti-piracy groups are at accurate take-down notices, either they’re for stuff that you can share, never had, or are incapable of having.

Last week, many people blacked out their profile images on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook, and today several bloggers announced a blackout of their entire website. The protest is being spearheaded by Creative Freedom, which was formed two months ago in response to this law – and not without success.

The protest caught the eye of many, including some celebrities. Stephen Fry, author of 7 novels, and a prolific screenwriter, actor, and presenter, is supporting the cause. “My picture is blacked out for good reason,” he twittered last week. The Quite Interesting Fry, ranked second most popular by twitterholic, was one of the first to black out his profile picture.

For now the protests have resulted in a delay of the law, perhaps not directly, but we are pretty certain that it would have been in effect already without all the opposition.

Source: Kiwis Delay Draconian File-Sharing Law

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/kiwis-delay-draconian-file-sharing-law-090223/feed/ 32 http://torrentfreak.com/drive-in-scene-cammer-arrested-090217/ http://torrentfreak.com/drive-in-scene-cammer-arrested-090217/#comments Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:35:53 +0000 Ben Jones http://torrentfreak.com/?p=9868 Source: Drive-in ‘Scene’ Movie Cammer Arrested
]]> One of the up sides of drive-in cinemas is that people are free to talk inside their own cars, use their phones, and even smoke at will.

This privacy can also mean that spotting someone surreptitiously recording the movie can be hard. Tinted windows can make the use of night vision equipment futile, and cameras can be hidden or covertly installed in cars. The movie’s audio, piped in through the car’s audio system, can also prove a great direct recording source.

Perhaps for these reasons, the New South Wales police have arrested and charged a man from the south west Sydney area, in connection with movie ‘camming’. The police carried out a raid and searched his residence, with members of the anti-piracy lobby group AFACT assisting (!). Afterwards, they seized what is being described as ‘sophisticated video camcording equipment’ (a camcorder) and computer equipment (most likely a computer).

The raid comes after a digital watermark, identifying the cinema, was found in some of the CAM and TS releases from the group ‘PreVail‘. Allegations are that the 26 year old man was linked to that group. However, no information on what ties the unnamed man had with the group has been made public, as a watermark would only identify the cinema that it was recorded at. Interestingly enough, two of the movie titles listed in the press-release have never been released by PreVail. “He’s Just Not That Into You” and “Marley and Me” were indeed released as a Cam version, but not by PreVail.

Of course, the arrests seem to have been prompted by (again) gross exaggerations of the facts by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) with the press releases talking about the great losses CAMs cause. It also comments how Scene ‘Top Sites’ sell their releases to ‘criminal groups’ who then mass produce DVDs for sale. Apart from scene groups often being very anti-sale, it’s unclear why criminal groups would pay for these releases anyway. A wait of less than an hour will enable them to get them for free online.

All things aside, if the man is a member of PreVail (a group that has ‘released’ more than 200 films in the last 3 ½ years) and is convicted, his sentence will not be a light one. With $60,500 AUS ($39,000US or €31,000) and 5 years imprisonment per offense, that can yield a maximum sentence of over a million Aussie dollars and 90 years in prison. In fact, he’s looking at a potential punishment greater than most murderers.

The 18 charges include possessing a device with intent to make an infringing copy, possessing an infringing copy for distribution, and distributing infringing copies. The case will be heard on March 12th at Blacktown Local Court.

On the plus side though, proving the bluster about financial gain will be hard. It appears to be how lobby groups prod police forces to act, even if the police are active pirates themselves.

Source: Drive-in ‘Scene’ Movie Cammer Arrested

]]> http://torrentfreak.com/drive-in-scene-cammer-arrested-090217/feed/ 43