In move reminiscent of the RIAA’s war on the public during the last decade, hundreds of thousands of Internet users are now receiving demands for cash settlements after allegedly downloading and sharing copyright-infringing content.

Alongside traditional ‘trolls’ such as the now-infamous Malibu Media, US-based Rightscorp Inc. has been recruiting copyright holders to pursue alleged pirates for relatively modest sums. As previously reported, in emails sent via their ISPs, subscribers are asked for $20.00 to settle copyright complaints.

One of the more recent additions to the Rightscorp fold is US-based entertainment company Miramax. The distributor has hundreds of movies in its catalog, with the image below representing just a tiny sample.

As can be seen top right, the Tarantino classic Kill Bill: Volume 1 is a Miramax title and one that is now being handled by Rightscorp. The company has been sending out cash demands to alleged sharers via their ISPs and some have taken to file-sharing sites including The Pirate Bay to send warnings to other potential downloaders.

“I got [a settlement demand] sent to me recently via email. This file is being tracked,” a user of the Pirate Bay explained.

Tracing back the details the user posted in the comments section of a Blu-ray ‘YIFY’ release led TF to the relevant settlement page on the Rightscorp website. As shown below, the company wants $20.00 to settle the case.

The extent to which Miramax has exposed its hundreds of other titles to Rightscorp is currently unknown, but in the particular case detailed above the company won’t be picking up any cash. The settlement page is yet to be filled in suggesting that the recipient simply ignored the demand which, incidentally, was sent to his ISP Charter Communications.

And here lies the problem. Although Rightscorp currently claims to have “closed” 100,000 infringement cases, in the majority of instances recipients are free to ignore the company’s demands since their identities remain a mystery to the anti-piracy outfit.

While thousands have undoubtedly paid up, the company refuses to reveal what percentage do not. Even investors on a recent conference call with the company were told the figures were a trade secret.

While companies like Miramax are testing out the cheap settlement option, there are signs that investor confidence could be much better. Since the company went public (NASDAQ) late 2013, the trend after the first quarter of 2014 is all downhill, with a particularly steep drop off at the end of last month.

The $20 request is an attractive amount for people to put a complaint completely behind them, and Rightscorp clearly know that, but discussions on community sites suggest that file-sharers are beginning to realize that paying up a few bucks might only be the beginning.

Rightscorp often send users a $20 claim for a single track and then once that amount is paid their target discovers that they’re on the hook for the rest of the songs on the album they downloaded, at $20 per track thereafter.

Only time will tell if the Rightscorp strategy will pay off, but if the company finds itself in worsening conditions it wouldn’t be a surprise if the amounts demanded for settlement begin to increase, alongside an even more aggressive pay-up-or-else tone.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In fact, the UK government has even gone as far as decriminalizing online copyright infringement entirely, despite risking the wrath of every intellectual property owner in the land.

That was the message doing the rounds yesterday in the media, starting on VG247 and going on to overload Reddit and dozens of other sites. Even Russia’s RT.com got in on the fun.

Except it’s not fun at all. It’s completely untrue on countless levels and to suggest otherwise puts people at risk. Let’s be absolutely clear here. Copyright infringement, whether that’s on file-sharing networks or elsewhere, is ILLEGAL in the UK. Nothing, repeat NOTHING, has changed.

As detailed in our previous article, VCAP is a voluntary (that’s the ‘V’ part) agreement between some rightsholders and a few ISPs to send some informational letters to people observed infringing copyright.

This means that the mainstream music labels and the major Hollywood studios will soon have an extra option to reach out to UK Internet users. However, whenever they want to – today, tomorrow or next year – any of the copyright holders involved in VCAP can still file a lawsuit or seek police action against ANYONE engaged in illegal file-sharing – FACT.

What makes the original VG247 report even more inaccurate is its headline: “Britain just decriminalised online game piracy.” If we’re still laboring under the illusion that VCAP is somehow the reason behind the government’s “decriminalization” of piracy, understand this – video game companies are not even part of the VCAP program.

Worst still, the biggest financial punishment ever ordered by a UK court was a default judgment in 2008 issued to – wait for it – a person who illegally file-shared a single video game. The case was a farce, but the judgment stands and the law on which it was based has not changed. There is nothing stopping any video game company from doing this again once VCAP starts, properly this time.

But why stop at video games? Porn companies/trolls aren’t involved in the VCAP scheme either and any of those could head off to court to obtain the identities of people they want to sue. It’s happening in the UK. There’s a VCAP-style scheme in the United States too, often referred to as “six strikes”, and that has done nothing to stop companies like Malibu Media filing lawsuits almost every day.

Voluntary agreements avoid the complication of changing the law, that’s their entire point. They offer helpful mechanisms that the law does not already provide. For example, UK ISPs are not expressly required to forward infringement notices to users under current law, yet VCAP means that some rightsholders, not all, will get that ‘right’.

So which other sectors are not involved in VCAP so therefore cannot rely on the assistance it provides? Well, thousands of smaller record labels and film companies for a start. They tend to be outside the walls of the BPI and MPA so do not enjoy the fruits of their lobbying. While these smaller outfits tend to stay away from litigation, they could soon have fresh options.

Piracy monetization firm Rightscorp works with many smaller companies and has recently indicated an interest in the UK. “We are getting a great reception from everyone we have spoken to [in the UK],” the company’s Robert Steele said in May. Whether Rightscorp will be able to pull this off is an entirely different matter, but since file-sharing of copyrighted material remains illegal in the UK, the company has a chance.

The other issue is how the VCAP warnings will be presented to alleged infringers. While they have a focus on education, it would be incredible if they contained the text “The UK has just decriminalized file-sharing, that’s why we have sent you this letter.” It would be even more amazing if the ISPs agreed to pass them on if file-sharing was no longer an offense.

While no laws have been changed, in some instances it’s probably fair to say that VCAP will make it less likely that people will be pursued by the major record labels and movie studios in the UK. It doesn’t eliminate the threat, however.

Try this. Head off to your local Odeon, Showcase or UCI this coming weekend, set up a camcorder, and see if you can get a really sweet copy of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Begin uploading this to The Pirate Bay and while it’s seeding send an email to the Federation Against Copyright Theft containing your personal details.

VCAP friendly letter incoming or a police raid? Yeah, thought so.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

As part of this partnership the ISPs have to store all warnings their customers receive. Opponents feared that this data could be used against these individuals in court, which is specifically permitted under the agreement.

“The Content Owner Representatives [MPAA / RIAA] or any other member of the Participating Content Owners Group may use such reports or data as the basis for seeking a Subscriber’s identity through a subpoena or order or other lawful process,” the agreement reads.

However, as it turns out, the first legal consequences aren’t a result of action taken by Hollywood or the major record labels. They come from the adult video publisher Malibu Media, a so-called copyright troll that has filed over 750 lawsuits against alleged infringers this year alone.

In their case against Kelley Tashiro, a middle-aged female nurse from Indianapolis, the company had trouble proving that an infringement actually took place. But instead of backing down, they put their money on the six-strikes warnings databases.

Malibu asked the court to order Comcast to release all data being held as part of the Copyright Alert System. While Malibu is not part of the program, this data may show that the Internet connection was used to share pirated content on more occasions.

“DMCA notices and six strike notices are relevant because these notices may prove a pattern of infringement or notice that infringement is occurring or both,” Malibu noted in its motion.

A copy of the recorded copyright infringements wasn’t enough for Malibu though, the company also asked for details of Tashiro’s bandwidth consumption, suggesting that this could indicate whether she is an infringer or not.

“Bandwidth usage is relevant because people who are heavy BitTorrent users use significantly more bandwidth than normal internet users,” the company’s sweeping generalization reads.

This week Indiana District Court Judge Mark Dinsmore granted Malibu’s motion, which means that Comcast will be ordered to share the requested evidence.

“Plaintiff’s Motion is GRANTED. Plaintiff may serve a third party subpoena on Comcast and Comcast should comply with Plaintiff’s Subpoena Duces Tecum
for deposition as outlined in Plaintiff’s Motion,” the Judge writes.

Comcast has not yet responded to the order, but considering the sensitivity of the subject the Internet provider is expected to file an appeal.

Currently it’s not known whether Tashiro has ever received a copyright alert, but the RIAA, MPAA and other participants in the Copyright Alerts System will not be pleased with these latest developments.

The Center for Copyright Information, which oversees the program, has always emphasized that the program respects the privacy of Internet subscribers. Having it used against alleged downloaders by copyright holders that are not even part of the scheme is bad PR for them, to say the least.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

As a result, small groups of individuals have sprung up around the globe to assist the targets of trolls by keeping them informed and offering forums to share experiences. One of the most famous operations is FightCopyrightTrolls.com (FCT), a husband and wife team that have worked extremely hard to counter troll-like companies in the United States. One such company is now fighting back.

Due to its relentless pursuing of alleged BitTorrent users, Malibu Media is the most prolific filer of copyright lawsuits in the whole of the United States. The video company has already filed a couple of thousands lawsuits in the hope of extracting a few thousand dollars in settlements from each of its targets. This week came yet more evidence that FCT gets under the skin of this litigious company.

In an 18-page motion revealed this week in a case against another alleged file-sharer, Malibu Media described FCT’s ‘Sophisticated Jane Doe” as not only a “self-admitted BitTorrent copyright infringer”, but one at the center of a campaign against the adult video company.

“[Malibu Media] is the target of a fanatical Internet hate group. The hate group is comprised of BitTorrent users, anti-copyright extremists, former BitTorrent copyright defendants and a few attorneys,” Malibu wrote in their motion.

“By administering and using the defamatory blog www.fightcopyrighttrolls.com,
‘Sophisticated Jane Doe’ (‘SJD’) leads the hate group.”

One of the key problems, the porn company explains, is that Jonathan Phillips, the lawyer for the defendant in the case, is part of that group.

“Opposing counsel communicates regularly with the hate group’s leader. Members of the hate group physically threaten, defame and cyber-stalk Plaintiff as well everyone associated with Plaintiff. Their psychopathy is criminal and scary,” Malibu explain.

So what is Phillips’ alleged contribution? Apparently he shares information about ongoing cases with FCT and its members and makes life difficult for Malibu – on Twitter.

“Opposing counsel regularly Tweets with the other members of the hate group. Further, his Tweets are often part of a series of Tweets intended to harass
Plaintiff and its counsel,” Malibu writes.

“Opposing counsel also Tweets about on-going litigation including this case and disparages Plaintiff. He even called Plaintiff a liar.”

The motion, which was originally filed under seal in February, calls on the court to gag both Phillips and the defendant in the case.

“To prevent the spoliation of evidence, Plaintiff respectfully requests that
the Court enter a sealed order preventing opposing counsel and Defendant from talking about the contents of this Motion or [REDACTED] with anyone. If Plaintiff’s intentions are revealed, there is a high probability of spoliation of evidence,” the motion reads.

While some information will remain under wraps, as far as the motion was concerned attempts at secrecy clearly failed.

“This filing was a result of an order from the Northern District of Illinois, which refused to allow Malibu Media to litigate this particular case in the shadows,” Philips told Ars.

“I am happy to practice in United States District Courts where the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has made it clear that litigation is to be open, accessible, and able to be reviewed and commented by the news media, the blogosphere, and the public at large.”

The big issue for Malibu going forward is that they appear to have learned little from the demise of other outfits conducting similar litigation in both the United States and Europe. Once opponents get motivated they can have extremely long memories and no amount of threats will make them stop. Hunting trolls effectively becomes a sport, and it rarely ends well.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

A cornerstone of the system sees the major labels and movie studios sending notices of infringement to ISPs which they in turn forward to their subscribers. Records of these notices are then held in a database, which copyright holders in the six-strike scheme may subsequently use in legal action, if they feel that is appropriate.

“The Content Owner Representatives [MPAA / RIAA] or any other member of the Participating Content Owners Group may use such reports or data as the basis for seeking a Subscriber’s identity through a subpoena or order or other lawful process,” the agreement reads.

Trouble is, any data on file is at risk of being accessed by a third party if they can convince a judge they have good reason to obtain it. And that’s exactly what the largest filer of copyright complaints in the United States is now attempting to do.

Malibu Media is well-known as a filer of many lawsuits against alleged file-sharers. Indeed, earlier this week the company was featured in an article which confirmed its status as the most prolific filer of copyright lawsuits in the entire United States.

In a case which has been documented by FightCopyrightTrolls since its initial February 2013 filing, Malibu has been struggling to pin an infringement on Kelley Tashiro, a middle-aged female nurse from Indianapolis. Faced with an uphill battle, Malibu has now turned to Tashiro’s ISP, Comcast, to find out what information it holds on her.

Perhaps inevitably, Malibu is attempting to find out whether or not the IP address allocated to Tashiro has ever been subject to infringement allegations by other copyright holders. In addition to details of any DMCA notices forwarded, Malibu has asked a judge to order the release of data being held as part of the Copyright Alerts System.

“DMCA notices and six strike notices are relevant because these notices may prove a pattern of infringement or notice that infringement is occurring or both,” Malibu writes in its motion.

In an indication of just how desperate Malibu has become, the company also wants details of Tashiro’s bandwidth consumption, as if that somehow indicates whether she is an infringer or not.

“Bandwidth usage is relevant because people who are heavy BitTorrent users use significantly more bandwidth than normal internet users,” the company’s sweeping generalization reads.

In summary, Malibu points out to the court that without this and other items of information from Comcast they have no chance of winning the case, another indication of how flimsy IP address-only evidence is now being viewed.

Whether Comcast will comply or not remains to be seen. A similar case in April 2013 which demanded information from Verizon was subsequently dropped.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Today, however, we have a much clearer idea of what happens behind the scenes at Malibu Media, one of the main companies in the United States currently chasing down BitTorrent users for cash settlements.

The company was required by Illinois Judge Milton Shadur to submit a summary of its activities in Illinois and, as spotted by troll watcher SJD over at Fight Copyright Trolls, there was an agreement that it could remain under seal.

Somehow, however, that document has now became available on Pacer and it reveals some rather interesting details on Malibu’s operations.

Overall, Malibu Media reports that it filed cases in Illinois against 886 defendants. According to the company, just 174 have paid up so far, with 150 of those hiring a lawyer to do so.

While 100 cases are still open (including 42 still at discovery stage and 30 in negotiations), for various reasons a total of 612 defendants paid nothing at all and the cases against them were dismissed. Malibu reveal the reasons for this in their filing, and they’re quite eye-opening to say the least.

Hardship

“Hardship is when a defendant may be liable for the conduct, but has extenuating circumstances where Plaintiff does not wish to proceed against him or her,” the Malibu document explains.

“Examples are when a defendant has little or no assets, defendant has serious illness or has recently deceased, defendant is currently active duty US military, defendant is a charitable organization or school, etc.”

Out of 886 defendants, Malibu reports that cases against 49 were dropped on hardship grounds.

Insufficient Evidence

It has long been said that an IP address alone isn’t enough to identify an infringer and Malibu’s own submission to the court underlines this in grand fashion.

“Insufficient evidence is defined as when Plaintiff’s evidence does not raise a strong
presumption that the defendant is the infringer or some other ambiguity causes Malibu to question the Defendant’s innocence,” the company writes.

So, in an attempt to boost the value of the IP address evidence, Malibu says it investigates further to determine whether the account holder is in fact the infringer. The company says it looks in three areas.

1. Length of the infringement, i.e. how long it took place, when it began, when it ended, whether it took place during the day or night, and any other patterns.

2. Location of the residence where the infringement occurred, i.e. whether it is in a remote location or with other dwellings within wireless access range.

3. Profiling suspected pirates using social media (Facebook, Twitter)

The third element is of particular interest. Malibu says that since July 2012 it has been monitoring not just its own content online, but also piracy on music, movies, ebooks and software. It compares the IP addresses it spots downloading other pirate content with the IP addresses known to be infringing copyright on its own titles.

The data collected is then used to profile the person behind the IP address and this is compared with information gleaned from sites including Facebook and Twitter.

“Oftentimes, a subscriber will publicly admit on social media to enjoying sports teams,
music groups, or favorite TV shows. Malibu will compare their likes and interests to their [downloads of other content] and determine whether the interests match,” the company explains.

So in what circumstances will Malibu dismiss a case on evidence grounds?

In the company’s own words:

-Multiple roommates within one residence with similar profiles and interests share a single Internet connection

-The defendant has left the country and cannot be located

-The results of additional surveillance do not specifically match profile interests or occupation of Defendant or other authorized users of the Internet connection

-The subscriber is a small business with public Wi-Fi access, etc

From a total of 886 defendants, cases against 259 were dropped due to insufficient evidence.

The Polygraph Defense

In the absence of any other supporting evidence, how can a subscriber prove a negative, i.e that he or she did not carry out any unlawful file-sharing? Quite bizarrely, Malibu says that it will accept the results of a lie detector test.

“[M]alibu will dismiss its claims against any Defendant who agrees to and passes a
polygraph administered by a licensed examiner of the Defendant’s choosing,” the company told the court.

So has anyone taken the bait? Apparently so.

“Out of the entirety of polygraphs administered within the United States by Malibu, no Defendant has passed and all such examinations have subsequently led to the Defendant settling the case,” Malibu writes.

No discovery

In order for Malibu to pressure account holders into settling, it first needs to find out who they are from their ISPs. Malibu’s submission reveals that this is not always possible due to:

- ISPs not retaining logging data for a long enough period
- Subpoenas being quashed due to cases being severed
- Information held on file at ISPs does not match identities of an address’s occupants
- ISP could not match the IP address with a subscriber at the time and date stipulated by Malibu

From a total of 886 defendants, cases against 304 were dropped due to failed discovery.

Cases dismissed due to settlement / actual judgments obtained

In total, 174 cases were settled by defendants without need for a trial but the amounts paid are not included in the document. However, the submission does reveal that two cases did go to court resulting in statutory damages awards of $26,250 and $15,000 respectively.

Conclusion

Malibu’s submission points to a few interesting conclusions, not least that the vast majority of their cases get dismissed for one reason or another and a significant proportion simply do not pay up.

The document also suggests that Malibu are working under the assumption that an IP address alone isn’t enough to secure a settlement and that additional social media-sourced evidence is required to back it up.

This information, plus the reasons listed by Malibu for not pursuing cases, should ensure that even less people are prompted to pay up in future.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The rightsholders bringing these cases generally rely on an IP address as evidence. They then ask the courts to grant a subpoena, forcing Internet providers to hand over the personal details of the associated account holder.

The problem, however, is that the person listed as the account holder is often not the person who downloaded the infringing material. Although not many judges address this crucial issue early on, there are exceptions, such as the one raised by Florida District Court Judge Ursula Ungaro.

Judge Ungaro was presented with a case brought by Malibu Media, who accused IP-address “174.61.81.171″ of sharing one of their films using BitTorrent without their permission. The Judge, however, was reluctant to issue a subpoena, and asked the company to explain how they could identify the actual infringer.

Responding to this order to show cause, Malibu Media gave an overview of their data gathering techniques. Among other things they explained that geo-location software was used to pinpoint the right location, and how they made sure that it was a residential address, and not a public hotspot.

Judge Ungaro welcomed the additional details, but saw nothing that actually proves that the account holder is the person who downloaded the file.

“Plaintiff has shown that the geolocation software can provide a location for an infringing IP address; however, Plaintiff has not shown how this geolocation software can establish the identity of the Defendant,” Ungaro wrote in an order last week.

“There is nothing that links the IP address location to the identity of the person actually downloading and viewing Plaintiff’s videos, and establishing whether that person lives in this district,” she adds.

Even if Malibu Media can accurately show that the copyright infringer used the Internet connection of the account holder connected to IP-address 174.61.81.171, they still can’t prove who shared the file.

“Even if this IP address is located within a residence, the geolocation software cannot identify who has access to that residence’s computer and who would actually be using it to infringe Plaintiff’s copyright,” Judge Ungaro explains.

As a result, the court decided to dismiss the case for improper venue. The ruling is crucial as it’s another unique order confirming that an IP address alone is not enough to launch a copyright infringement lawsuit.

Copyright Troll watcher SJD points out that the same Judge has also issued orders to show cause in two other Malibu Media cases, which are also likely to be closed.

While not all judges may come to the same conclusion, the order definitely limits the options for copyright holders in the Southern District of Florida. Together with several similar rulings on the insufficiency of IP-address evidence, accused downloaders have yet more ammunition to fight back.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Day in and day out the company scours the Internet for people sharing their movies via BitTorrent. They then collect the associated IP-addresses, and ask courts all over the country to help them find the perpetrators.

Nearly all of these cases end up being settled for a few thousand dollars each. However, every now and then a defendant fails to respond, giving Malibu Media the opportunity to obtain a default judgment.

This happened to L. Sagala from Muskegon, Michigan, who was found guilty of willful copyright infringement by a federal court last week.

Malibu Media found that the IP-address registered to Sagala was used to share several X-Art movies and asked the court to award $40,500.00 in statutory damages. A bargain, according to Malibu Media, who claim that the real damages are even higher.

“Despite the fact of Defendant’s willful infringement, Plaintiff only seeks an award of $40,500.00 in statutory damages. This amount is reasonable when considering that Plaintiff’s actual damages far exceed this sum,” Malibu Media’s lawyers write.

“To explain, Defendant materially aided each of the other participants in the BitTorrent swarm of infringers. This swarm contained thousands of peers and continues to grow. Plaintiff’s actual damages are the lost sales of its content to those thousands of infringers. In the aggregate, these lost sales far exceed $40,500.00,” they add.

In an order filed before the weekend, District Court Judge Robert Jonkert grants Malibu Media’s damages request, as well as $1,649.40 for attorneys’ fees and costs. As Sagala failed to defend himself the verdict doesn’t come as a surprise. However, the relatively high damages award is not something we see every day.

The Order

Over the past few months Malibu Media has scored several similar default “victories” and there is no sign that they will be stopping anytime soon. Together with numerous settlements, which are worth up to thousands of dollars each, the company and its lawyers are estimated to have made millions of dollars.

Malibu Media’s legal action against alleged BitTorrent pirates initially started in 2012, when it followed in the footsteps of several other adult entertainment outfits. Since then, the company has filed a total of 1,894 lawsuits. It’s pretty safe to say that in addition to its x-rated activities, Malibu Media has also perfected the ‘art’ of copyright trolling.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

While Rightscorp seeks small settlements of a few dollars per alleged offense, other companies really do earn their copyright troll label with demands for thousands of dollars/euros per infringed item. US citizens have parted with millions of dollars in recent years but spare a thought for the people of Germany, who were introduced to this model in the middle of the last decade.

Information supplied to TorrentFreak by Christian Solmecke of the Wilde Beuger Solmecke law firm, shows that plenty of well-known companies are involved in the German settlement market. Record companies EMI, Sony and Warner, US porn trolls Malibu Media, plus big movie companies including Universal and Twentieth Century Fox were all active last year.

New figures made available by IGGDAW, an interest group that works with targets of predatory rightsholders, reveal that the business has shown little sign of let up during the past 12 months.

During 2013, a total of 108,975 threat letters were sent out to Internet users, a modest decrease of 1.3% over the number sent in 2012. As can be seen in the chart below, the number is thankfully just a fraction of the huge numbers sent in 2009 and 2010.

While the number of threats sent is slightly down, rightsholders and law firms involved are both on the rise. A total of 446 rightsholders employed 72 law firms to send out letters in 2013, versus 422 and 65 respectively in 2012.

Content-wise, the greatest number of settlement requests were sent out for regular movies (‘spielfilm’) with 43.9% of the total. Adult movies (‘porno’) trailed quite a way behind in second place with 24.2%. Music tracks came a close third with 22.8% of the total.

For yet another year the all-important settlement numbers make for bleak reading. In 2012 the average amount demanded from letter recipients was 796.87 euros ($1,094), an amount that increased to 829.11 euros ($1,140)in 2013.

Multiply that by the number of threats sent (108,975) and we reach a figure in excess of 90.3 million euros, or around $124 million. How many people actually settle remains unclear but German law is geared up to put pressure on Internet users to pay up.

So where now for Germany?

It was hoped that new legislation (Improper Business Practices Act) introduced last October would assist by imposing transparency requirements on law firms sending out letters and capping the amounts they can claim. But according to Christian Solmecke, the law firms involved have adjusted accordingly.

“The new rules do not go far enough. The position in which internet users find themselves is hardly any better than that in which they were in before the legislation came into force,” he concludes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The past 15 years is littered with casualties. Dozens of file-sharing services have been shut down, with Napster, Kazaa, Grokster, LimeWire, Megaupload and isoHunt merely heading up an almost endless list of sharing tools subjected to destruction. Sadly they are just the tip of the iceberg, with much of the action this year going on under the surface.

During 2013 Hollywood and the music industry deliberately calmed down in the United States, putting citizens there at ease after the SOPA debacle. But while the United States sleeps they are doing their work overseas in countries such as the UK. Grabbing a domain is out of the question on home soil, but doing it through a foreign proxy is easy. It’s a depressing land grab with worldwide implications that no one is doing anything about.

Other miserable developments have their roots in the past. Last decade the RIAA decided it would be a good idea to sue its own customers and continued for years until finally realizing they were getting nowhere. The same cynical practice is today being carried out by dozens of bottom-feeding troll companies such as Prenda Law, Malibu Media and GoldenEye International, each looking to profit from piracy and doing so by the most damaging and cruel means possible.

So when an article gets published that states that Iron Maiden, a huge band with a massive following, has decided to look at piracy and do something positive with it, people get properly excited. And rightly so.

Learning that the band monitored BitTorrent networks and collected pirate location data not to sue their fans, but to find out where they are in order to play for them, was a wonderful juxtaposition to the snarly image Metallica cultured when crushing Napster at the turn of the century.

Here was a band being smart, using piracy data to intelligently develop their product and image, casting their lawyers aside and putting their energies into something positive. At the same time, to the delight of the crowds and quite clearly the majority of the tech press, pleasing and embracing fans in a way that the file-sharing scene has advised for more than a decade.

But sadly the story isn’t true and CiteWorld, the publishers of the original article, have printed a full apology and heavily edited their report to reflect the much less exciting reality.

How disappointing is that? That ray of light in a sea of bad news was not only welcome, but badly needed. Now it’s gone and we’re left with that sinking feeling because let’s face it, we’ve had a pretty depressing year.

Site closures, site blockades, six strikes, the specter of ISP filtering, not to mention intensive lobbying that threatens to further restrict freedom on the Internet in the name of protecting copyright.

The Iron Maiden story is just what we needed, a story that opened up new ways of thinking and gave us hope that things can be handled in a different way. It reinvigorated the belief that bands, artists and file-sharers really can come together in a way that not only makes sense but is productive for everyone concerned.

At this point we really want to believe, we want to have hope that someone, somewhere, will come along and take away the negativity. That’s why the Iron Maiden article was repeated so many times and that’s why people wanted to spread the news. It gave us a chance to share being positive and was cool – very cool indeed.

CiteWorld may have got it wrong but their story has the potential to spark good things, so here’s to a 2014 fueled by people who see potential and want to drive the good news train. There’s a big audience out there ready to ride it – and hand over their money to do so.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.