Details of Lord Mandelson’s draconian pro-copyright plans contained in the Digital Economy Bill leaked out yesterday, provoking a wave of dissent. The Liberal Democrats have now made a statement, voicing dismay at this “utterly shameless” attempt to introduce major rules without proper Commons assessment.
Tomorrow morning Lord Mandelson will present the Digital Economy Bill to the public, which among other things is aimed at reducing illicit file-sharing. According to parts of the bill that leaked today, the legislation could lead to jail terms for file-sharers and unprecedented power for the entertainment industries.
The Swedish hosting provider Portlane is being sued by several Hollywood movie studios for hosting the standalone BitTorrent tracker, OpenBitTorrent. The movie studios are claiming that OpenBitTorrent is a re-branded copy of The Pirate Bay tracker that shut down yesterday.
If you have ever used a public or open tracker, you know that reliability often comes with a half-hearted smile – trackers can go offline and return again, often without explanation or warning. To help keep track of the status of public trackers, there’s now Trackon, the BitTorrent Tracker Tracker.
Today marks the end of an era, as The Pirate Bay team announces that the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker is shutting down for good. Although the site will remain operational for now, millions of BitTorrent users will lose the use of its tracker and will instead have to rely on DHT and alternative trackers to continue downloading.
MC Hammer, rap phenomenon and self-confessed geek, has kicked the major music labels in their over-sized pants with regard to their anti-piracy strategy. Hammer said that the labels’ decision to go after individual filesharers and ISPs has failed, because it only alienated paying customers.
Seen by millions of people worldwide, the ship design used by The Pirate Bay is one of the most recognizable logos on the Internet today. But after discovering that the iconic emblem had not been officially registered, a Swedish company has hijacked the trademark as their own, with an eye on commercial exploitation.
When Sweden’s IPRED legislation came into force on April 1st this year, the country saw a massive 30% drop in Internet traffic. Many attributed this to Internet user fears associated with increased powers of anti-piracy groups. Now, 8 months later, traffic is completely back to normal and on track to exceed pre-IPRED levels.
Game developer RedLynx has been exploring a novel marketing technique for its products. Instead of trying to get all its titles removed from torrent sites, the company itself is distributing ‘hacked’ copies of the games, hoping to convert torrent site users into paying customers.
European Internet users accused of illicit file-sharing will not be disconnected on the whims of the entertainment industries. After an all night session European Union lawmakers agreed on a compromise text. Those accused will be entitled to a “fair and impartial” procedure, which will include the right to be heard.
Millions of file-sharers have responded to the entertainment industry lobby by taking measures to hide their identities. A recent survey found that in Sweden alone, half a million Internet subscribers use anonymizing services. The findings further suggest that tougher anti-piracy legislation will boost these numbers significantly.
