BitTorrent sites are continuing to frustrate anti-piracy groups in Spain. They are not illegal under current law, but with a 3 strikes-style regime ruled out in the country, the entertainment industry feels it has no choice but to go after them. They are now placing their bets on thawing US relations and a subsequent change in the law.
The Commissioning Editor for Education at the UK’s Channel 4 will publish an essay tomorrow that is guaranteed to cause controversy. Noting that people will never go back to paying for music, Alice Taylor vehemently opposes plans to disconnect Internet users on a simple accusation, labeling the entities calling for it as “dying behemoths”.
The MPAA is currently involved in legal battles against several BitTorrent sites. Last year Hollywood’s lobby organization booked a victory in court when they managed to shut TorrentSpy down, but despite these efforts the studio bosses are still not satisfied. Three of the MPAA’s anti-piracy leaders have now been fired.
Cineworld, the UK’s second largest multiplex cinema chain, says it provides an environment that makes cinema going a pleasurable experience, “which in turn encourages frequent return visits.” However, they have just alienated an award winning TV and radio broadcaster by refusing him entry because he had his laptop with him.
Two of the main judges appointed to the upcoming Pirate Bay appeal have been accused of a conflict of interest, since they have both been members of pro-copyright groups. The appeal court decided that the judges are not biased, but the defense has announced that it will take the case to the Supreme Court, which is likely to delay the trial.
The Finnish Pirate Party has condemned a massive claim for damages against the operator of a file-sharing hub. The individual is facing a claim of 3.6m euros ($5.4m) from an anti-piracy group, this despite claims that there is no evidence of any specific infringements, merely high bandwidth usage on the individual’s ISP account.
Day eight of the trial between anti-piracy group AFACT and Aussie ISP iiNet. Today’s proceedings centered around the quality of the evidence supplied to the court by AFACT. It was ascertained that AFACT likely counted breaches more than once, with one of their lawyers admitting that one method used was not 100% accurate.
For years RIAA and MPAA members have hired companies to attack popular BitTorrent swarms in an attempt to interfere with their downloads. According to a recently published paper by New York University researchers, these attacks are highly ineffective. At best, they slow downloads for a few minutes, something most users don’t even notice.
The Motion Picture Association has sent one of its big shot lobbyists to New Zealand to advocate tougher anti-piracy legislation, and to promote a propagandistic comic book set be handed out to thousands of local kids. Interestingly, the comic doesn’t touch the subject of copyright. Instead it uses false threats to scare children and parents about the dangers of file-sharing.
Day five of the copyright infringement trial between anti-piracy group AFACT and Aussie ISP iiNet was marked by the cross examination of anti-piracy tracking firm DtecNet, partly in private. The company also made some very unusual claims about the habits of “ordinary” BitTorrent users, who apparently regularly filter who they connect to.
Unlike most people might think, piracy is not necessarily a bad thing for copyright holders. In fact, German pirate-tracking outfit DigiRights Solutions shows that copyright holders can earn 150 times more money from illicit downloads than from iTunes and other legal stores.
