It is hard to tell if these sites will ever stop growing, and if they will ever make it into the top 100 without one of them going down, but we’ll see what the future brings. Isohunt, the site that bumped the other sites into the top 200, is currently moving their servers from The USA to Canada, and will probably be up and running soon.

Note: Alexa’s data gathering is quite dubious. The exact figures may be not be completely accurate, but it is a great tool (especially the traffic rank) to compare sites within the same niche and to get a global impression of traffic shifts over time.

Source: The Pirate Bay, mininova, and Torrentspy Enter the Alexa 200

So in the near future it could be that you’re downloading your favorite torrents from your ISP’s server instead of some random seed or peer at the other side of the globe.

Currently, “regular” BitTorrent is traffic is suffering from throttling ISP’s that claim that BitTorrent traffic is cluttering their pipes. This morivated the developers of the most popular BitTorrent clients implement encryption to protect BitTorrent users from being slowed down by their ISP’s.

However, Bram Cohen, the creator of the BitTorrent protocol and the developer of the mainline BitTorrent client did not believe that encryption was the solution, and found (tohether with Cachelogic) a more ISP friendly alternative. However, this new and improved version is promising the opposite, downloads will be accelerated instead of throttled. However, only for commercially licensed content.

Ashwin Navin, President and Co-founder of BitTorrent states:

“CacheLogic has developed an innovative solution to address a major problem that all ISPs face with respect to network congestion. Today, people use the Internet for many bandwidth-intensive services and consumers are increasingly aware of the quality of service needed for their favourite applications. With the popularity of BitTorrent usage worldwide, ISP networks are being taxed in a way they weren’t designed for. As a remedy to this, the Cache Discovery Protocol is providing carriers with an economical and scalable solution that improves the end-user experience for applications that consumers are growing to love.”

press release.

Source: CacheLogic and BitTorrent Introduce Cache Discovery Protocol

“With the feeders soon seeding bleeders, you’ll find yourself flooded with needers needing bleeders finding feeders in the seed.

When your feeder seeds the seed, you need the needer needing needs on the feeds you can bleed while bleeding feeders what they call stackers. Now, stackers sit and sack the seed while bleeders knead the needers and the hackers pack the stackers in the needy feeder feeds. Slackers take the sacking stackers in the feeder bleeding seeds.

Then the tracker stacks the hacker needing feeder feeding feeds, while the bleeder seeds the seeds and the stacker tricks the tracker into bleeding needlessly. While the tracker stacks the stacker in the feeding bleeder deed, you can sick the needy knocker in the bleeder seeding feed.”

Revolutionary development! We definitely going to hear more about this one.

source

Source: Bitchtorrent: Bram Cohen Invents New Protocol

Slightly more than a year ago the word was going around that LimeWire, at the time download.com’s most popular commercial p2p file sharing application, was going down.

“We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by the clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties,” wrote justice David H. Souter for the US Supreme Court in the Grokster / StreamCast v MGM ruling.

Then, “Mark Gorton [left], the chief executive of the Lime Group … said he was likely to stop distributing LimeWire in reaction to the ruling,” said The New York Times. “He said it appeared too difficult to meet the implied standard for inducement. The court, Mr. Gorton said, has ‘handed a tool to judges that they can declare inducement whenever they want to’.”

LimeWire’s answer was what amounted to DRM – a copyright filter – but Warner Music, Vivendi Universal, EMI and Sony BMG have, in their ongoing assault on the internet and its users, again targeted LimeWire, together with Gorton and coo Greg Bildson. And once again “inducement” is the hook, the line and, the Big Four hope, the final sinker for LimeWire.

Meanwhile, a community driven project based on source code released by LimeWire LLC aimed to, “create and maintain a Gnutella client according to the open standards of an international community”.

The new application was, and still is, called FrostWire, written to, “keep and maintain the freedoms that LimeWire LLC may be forced to withdraw,” says the site, going on:

“LimeWire LLC has been considering an alternative path to keep them out of any legal situations they could be forced into. From what we understand, LimeWire LLC intends to implement a DRM filtering technology into their client. If LimeWire ever decides to implement this DRM technology, we will be prepared to remove it from our code and distribute the client under our own branding. However, we will continue supporting the LimeWire client development and do not wish to make fundamental or drastic changes to the LimeWire core itself.

“FrostWire will not break with LimeWire’s design philosophy. We will always do our best to maintain a strong relationship with the LimeWire Development Team. FrostWire, although very much like LimeWire, will never offer a paid version or a subscription service for the download or use of the FrostWire application. FrostWire is a not-for-profit project. We will never bundle our software with any type of adware, spyware, malware or collect any personal or private data. FrostWire will always remain free as in both price and freedom.”

However, LimeWire is still under the corporate gun and, “Despite numerous efforts to engage LimeWire, the site’s corporate owners have shown insufficient interest in developing a legal business model that adequately respects copyrights,” says the Big Four’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America),” according to Billboard. “While other services have come productively to the table, LimeWire has sat back and continued to reap profits on the backs of the music community. That is unfortunate and has left us no choice but to file a lawsuit to protect the rights and livelihoods of artists, songwriters and record label employees, as well as those companies building legitimate businesses based on music.”

The labels want an injunction and damages of at least $30,000 for every infringement of every recording and at least $150,000 for every willful infringement if each recording, says the story, adding:

“Last week Sharman Networks and others involved with P2P network Kazaa settled with the labels for $115 million and agreed to go legit. A similar deal was struck last year with Grokster.”

Sharman has, of course, been striving for years to reach an agreement with elements of the corporate entertaiment industry and in our humble opinion, the actual amount handed over is unlikely to be $115 million, or anywhere near it, and might in reality be regarded as an admission fee for the cartel good ‘ole boys klub.

p2pnet

Source: LimeWire Sued by the RIAA

The data is collected by Big Champagne, the numbers of seeds and peers is the average swarm size of the torrents during the last week. Check out Peermind for more free p2p filesharing (non BT) statistics.

thanks to p2pnet

Source: BitTorrent Movie Download Chart (wk31)

What do they offer?

Master flash files and bitmaps of every piece of art used in this season of Odd Job Jack. Every character, prop, and background from every episode plus tutorials and other support material. All free to hack, use, remix under a share-friendly license.

And why?

We love animation and we just know you do too. We’re proud of Odd Job Jack and we’ve put lots of work into our show. Our art deserves to live beyond broadcast and who better to give a free gift to than the entire planet?

The torrents are tracked by legaltorrents.com, and can be found a the freejack site. This is a great initiative, let’s hope more will follow.

Source: Odd Job Jack For Free

If the woman is convicted for copyright theft, she could face up to five years in prison, or a fine between 6000 and 90.000 USD.

However, the staff of the cinema in question may have responded a little too adequate (early), it might be hard to get someone in jail for recording an anti-piracy commercial.

Source: Woman Caught Recording Anti-Piracy Commercial

He said:

“The version of Gangs Of London that you have brought our attention to here is a pre-production ‘preview’ version,” he revealed. “It is not the complete game and it has anomalies in the code since it hasn’t been through our QA process yet.”

This reaction makes you wonder.. Is this some new form of a advertising? Piracy or promotion? What’s wrong with the good old “trial/preview version”.

The full version is scheduled to appear by the end of 2006.

Source: Gangs of London Leaks on BitTorrent

Paid downloads will cost $0.99 per song. Mashboxx offers a “try before you buy” mechanism to check out songs before you decide to buy. You have the option to preview the full song 5 times, after that previewing is limited to 30 seconds.

And the DRM? If you decide to buy/download a song, you have the right to copy it to 5 other pc’s, and burned onto CD up to seven times. Copying the songs to windows media compatible portable players is unlimited.

Mashboxx

Source: MashBoxx: Authorized P2P Downloads

And it looks like this defense is working:

“This month, the inability to prove who actually did the file sharing caused the RIAA to drop a case in Oklahoma. The same defense has worked in a California case as well. As soon as the RIAA realized the person was using this type of defense, they dropped the cases, rather than lose and set a precedent showing they really don’t have the unequivocal evidence they claim to possess.”

Anyway… just reset your wireless router if you receive a letter from the RIAA or MPAA….

Source: RIAA vs. IP:127.0.0.1

Although Grokster caved and accepted the judgment, paying a substantial amount to MGM, Streamcast hasn’t given up. The case is now being heard in US District Court in L.A. (Source: Hollywood Reporter.com)

The new “inducement test” is being hotly debated by entertainment and technology lawyers in and out of court. Even if StreamCast loses, attorney Charles Baker will seek to block damages by asserting the affirmative defense of copyright misuse. “The motion picture companies, record labels and publishers have for years colluded to limit the distribution of digital content”, pointing out the unfavorable licensing contracts that indie labels and others not associated with the majors are forced to accept.

Baker says, “The fight is far from over”, as the Supreme Court, in its ruling, invited anyone to take the case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Has anything changed in the real world of p2p? Yes, quite a lot.

The Hollywood Reporter, ESQ., invited RIAA general counsel Steven Marks, Universal Music Group eLabs president Larry Kenswil, and EFF’s Fred Von Lohmann to take part in a “spirited” roundtable discussion on the court ruling, filesharing, and digital distribution.

Kenswil believes that rather than shaking up the music industry, the Supreme Court’s ruling brought stability to the industry, setting rules about what people can do with copyrighted material. Von Lohmann disagrees. Except for the “inducement test”, the court failed to clarify the basic rules, pointing out that it’s still unclear whether a technology that has substantial non-infringing uses can be held responsible if people misuse the technology.

Both Marks and Kenswil believe that the inducement test has “nudged” technology companies to approach the labels and studios, looking for ways to work together, in effect taking the position that any technology not approved and sanctioned by the cartels is illegal. This, they claim, doesn’t stifle technological innovation, but encourages it (as long as the cartels can control it). Von Lohmann rightly puts them in their place and tells them they’re putting “the cart before the horse” when it comes to encouraging innovation.

The cartels claim the Betamax precedent doesn’t exist, as concerns the Supremes’ decision , or that if it does exist, it can be ignored because they want to work with “legitimate services”, which has already “enhanced” the market, citing the growth (haha!) of the legitimate digital market year to year.

Did we miss something here? As all parties acknowledge, free p2p has increased monthly since the original Napster case. They also acknowledge that the cartels will always have to compete with free p2p, although Universal’s Kenswil claims Napster had nothing to do with the “billions of dollars now being spent on digital music” and the technology behind it. He calls that idea “preposterous”. I guess he should know because it was the RIAA which shut Napster down, coerced it into joining the “legitimate” marketplace, which then turned Napster the useless piece of p2p crap it is today. He wouldn’t want to admit that billions were wasted in that arena.

On the other hand, while the rate of shared music files has slowed down – but still moving in an upward direction – in comparison to just a few years ago, film and TV filesharing has risen dramatically, constituting the bulk of files being shared around the world.

On the lawsuits in general, this roundtable had some obvious observations and a few surprises for the reader:

Marks: “I don’t think we’ve ever targeted technology or technology services.”

What’s that?

Didn’t the cartels sue Grokster, Streamcast, and Kazaa? Aren’t they trying to make a case against XM’s Inno? Didn’t they try to influence (read blackmail) the Swedish and U.S. governments into closing down Pirate Bay, ultimately failing – an endeavor which in turn gave birth to more filesharers and the creation of numerous political “Pirate Parties” in several countries, including Sweden and the U.S.?

Marks: “We’ve targeted companies who were, in our view, facilitating copyright infringement.”

Ah, so that’s how they blackmailed Bram Cohn. Okay, I get it now. As long as they can control the technology, everything’s kosher. If they can’t control it, in their view it’s illegal. Gotcha. First, threaten to sue the pants off the inventor of the most popular filesharing software. When he capitulates to your demands, pay him off with a house, a car, lifetime education for his kids, health insurance for the family, a seven-figure salary, and an exclusive contract (compulsory gag order/non-disclosure codicil included) .

Don’t forget to go after the users of the software, either.

Marks: “We very reluctantly began filing cases against individual users. But we think that both of those efforts have borne through. [The problem of piracy is now one] that is exemplified more by a hard-core group of users than it is by a continuing growth of users.”

LOL! That’s very funny because every statistical survey of file sharing has continually shown that more and more people are sharing files every day.

As Eric Garland, CEO of Big Champagne – the main analyst of p2p facts and figures – tells in a separate Hollywood Reporter interview, at any one time there are 10 million people sharing files on free p2p networks.

That’s roughly ten times as many as when Napster was in its heyday. And the numbers are going up, not down.

The lesson, according to the view of the cartels and their interpretation of the Grokster ruling is, if you have – or want to create – a filesharing program, go to the cartels first and ask for permission to innovate. Then you’ll get a sweet deal like Bram did. If you don’t you’ll be viewed as a thief and sued.

Marks: “Eradicating every last act of piracy is something we understand is futile, and has never been an objective of the industry.”

Really? So what’s with the 19,000 + lawsuits then? The ones you have no proof of copyright infringement? The ones, which will cost the industry billions of dollars and millions of customers? The ones you’ll ultimately lose because public awareness of and disgust for these frivolous cases and their waste of tax payer money will do more to turn people away from “legal” product than any p2p program ever could? What about these lawsuits? Are they just symbolic token lawsuits to grab headlines before they’re lost or thrown out of court? Hmmm?

I think it’s so cute they still consider free filesharing as “piracy” when nothing has been stolen, no money or services have been exchanged , ergo, no profit , no theft – and there’s no proof that a shared file equals a lost sale.

On the other hand, entertainment cartel practice of colluding to fix prices, bribe radio stations, arrest customers and plant spyware into computers everywhere is considered business as usual.

The cartels have never been able to prove that a file shared is equal to a lost sale or rental. In fact, several court cases have either been dropped by the cartels or thrown out exactly because they can’t prove it. And at the same time, the music and film industries are reporting record profits.

Big Champagne, the most-noteworthy and respected compiler of free p2p statistics, the place where even the MPAA and RIAA go to for reliable information, has continually shown that free p2p has increased, despite the thousands of unlawful lawsuits filed against innocent people. But no-one can show that money is lost due to free p2p.

The entertainment industry is stuck in, and unwilling to leave, the past. The future is here. The future is now. The future is free p2p.

Free p2p doesn’t have to be seen as something negative or evil. It can also be a useful tool for the cartels.

For decades the Nielsen TV ratings system has decided the rates advertisers must pay.

The Nielsen ratings system is based only on overnight results in certain markets, whereas free p2p is immediate and virtually open-ended time-wise, and isn’t tied to age or gender demographics. Instead of calculating viewers per capita or by region, they can see exactly how many times a file was downloaded and use this info to help in setting advertising rates. There’s no reason why the Nielsen system can’t work with the Big Champagne system. There will always be people who either first watch a program on TV with ads and then download it, or vice verse. The two sets of statistics, taking this knowledge into account, can be used to create a better and more accurate picture.

True, when files are shared ads are edited out. But looking at the total worldwide viewership, instead of just measly overnight ratings, including the statistics from p2p networks will give a much better idea of how many people are interested in a program, which can be used to calculate ad rates.

Too many times a good program is cancelled because of either low ratings (Star Trek: Enterprise) or because of pressure from political or religious groups (The Book of Daniel). Both of these shows were extremely popular on p2p networks, but were canceled due to outdated ratings systems and the extreme-right activist groups. Ad revenue was lost, but not because of free p2p.

Even though more people might be downloading a program, that doesn’t mean they won’t watch it on TV as well, just as downloading a film doesn’t mean a DVD or cinema ticket won’t be purchased. But a new way of calculating ad revenue can be created using all the tools available.

I don’t know how this can be done, but I believe it can be done to satisfy networks and advertisers, without losing viewers. Keeping these shows on the air will increase the numbers of broadcast viewers, whether they have access to a computer or not. And p2p will be the cause of this increase.

Has anything changed in p2p since MGM v. Grokster? Yes, most definitely.

There are more and more files and file sharers and file sharing networks than ever before. This, despite , or as a result of , the backward-thinking cartels and their ridiculous claims of losing money, as well as the thousands of lawsuits being illegally and immorally brought against innocent people.

And as mentioned cinema tickets, and CD and DVD sales and rentals have increased.

Will the cartels change with the times? Probably not. As long as they can continue influencing political parties and the lamescream media; as long as they can control the distribution of “product” and the technology behind the distribution; and as long as there are lawyers willing to make a buck off the backs of innocent people, the entertainment industry will lag behind real innovation.

But free p2p is here to stay.

p2pnet

Source: The Past and Future of Filesharing

The Austrian Pirate Party is planning to participate in Austria’s national elections this October and has three main points:

1. Copyright reform: People should be free to make private copies, prohibition of DRM, reduction of copyright protection to 5 years after publication
2. Privacy protection: No European Union powered data storage
3. Patent reform: Getting rid of trivial Software patents

They are currently collaborating with other Pirate Parties in France, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Germany and the USA.

Source: Austrian Pirates Separate from Communists

On Snarf-it.org we read:

A couple of days ago we received this email from Microsoft asking us to remove about 200 torrents from the site that were “offending” their ideas of copyright. This site is run by people who have day time jobs, we don’t make anywhere near the exorbitant amounts of money made by other BitTorrent site admins so we have to have normal day jobs to survive. This means we do not have the time it would take to go through 400,000 sql entries to find and remove the torrents that other companies would like us to remove.

So snarf-it indroduced a ‘delete it yourself” service. Users of the DIY system can select up to 20 infringing torrents per day. The DIY service fully discharges the site’s responsibilities in respect of US DMCA and similar legislation as stated in Snarf’s wiki.

Although most BitTorrent sites comply with DMCA notices, a wise step if you want to keep the MPAA and RIAA off you back. But Snarf’s DIY service is certainly one of the most advanced and time-saving ways to do so.

If we take a look at the deal between BitTorrent.com and the MPAA we learn that all you have to do is comply to DMCA takedown notices, in order to please the MPAA.

Sounds fair enough.

Source: Snarf-It introduces “Delete It Yourself” Service

But it looks like things changed for the better. Gary from Isohunt.com came to the rescue…. At Podtropolis we read:

Well, I just hate good community and nice design going to waste, so here I am, rescuing sites again. I’m Gary, aka. IH at isoHunt.com. As Andrew have said, the site was having financial trouble with keeping up hosting costs, and I happen to have servers for it. So Podtropolis will be joining brethens at isoHunt.com and TorrentBox.com. We are working out the kinks in getting the site back up to its former glory, so stay tuned.

By the way, you can see a CBC interview with gary over here

Source: Isohunt Adopts Podtropolis

The data is collected by Big Champagne, the numbers of seeds and peers is the average swarm size of the torrents during the last week. Check out Peermind for more free p2p filesharing (non BT) statistics.

thanks to p2pnet

Source: BitTorrent Movie Download Chart (wk30)

Azureus is currently implementing a “content layer” where commercial downloads will start to appear. Users will be able to search for certain keywords, or browse through the available content by tags.

Azureus is downloaded almost 2million times every month, and it has a strong and dedicated community. This spring they received an award for “most popular open-source software” at the first annual SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards. However, it is unclear how the public will respond to the paid content that will start to appear in Azureus.

A video presentation of the Azureus 3.0 and the new features is available here.

Source: Azureus gets Commercial Funding

But not any more.

That’s because they’ve found a clever, new ‘high tech’ way of getting the music out.

It’s called Kazaa, the self-same p2p file sharing application used by many, if not most, of the 19,000 or so men, women and children the RIAA has singled out as the back-drop for its bizarre RIAA sue ‘em all marketing campaign.

“I’ve been informed by more than one source that the major labels have encouraged the use of the very p2p networks they’re villifying,” Ray Beckerman, the New York lawyer who’s representing a number of RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) victims, has told p2pnet.

“Radio DJs have said the record company people who used to drop by with CDs would instead now tell them to get Kazaa, or gnutella or something, and download the song files that way.

“We have numerous affirmative defenses which would be supported by the fact that the RIAA has encouraged the very conduct it’s suing Marie Lindor for,” Beckerman says angrily.

Lindor is the Brooklyn, New York, home health aide who’s being sued by the Big Four Organized Music cartel’s RIAA.

Although she literally doesn’t know one end of a computer from another and has never even turned one on, according to Warner Music, Vivendi Universal, EMI and Sony BMG, she’s been using an “online distribution system” to, “download, distribute, and/or make available for distribution” copyrighted music.

Now Beckerman wants to see just how common the practice of employing the likes of Kazaa as a free corporate p2p promotional vehicle is, asking interested parties to call him at 212-763-6809, or email him here.

Definitely stay tuned.

p2pnet

Source: The RIAA uses KAZAA to Promote Songs

Hogan says:

“$100,000 in legal fees is a small price to pay to challenge the MPAA’s tactics.They’re completely abusing the system, I would spend well into the millions on this.”

The 30-year-old software developer is sued for downloading a copy of “meet the fockers”. Hogan denies that he ever used BitTorrent to download this movie, and on top of this, he already owns a legal copy of the DVD.

MPAA’s head of antipiracy John G. Malcolm responded:

“We look forward to addressing his issues in a court of law.”

This is a very interesting case because there’s finally someone who has the money to stand up to the MPAA. The result of this case will have a great impact on the MPAA’s “war on piracy” and their current suing habit.

Source: Millionaire Willing to Fight the MPAA

TPB supports an initiative by the AFCI to help the Ladonians in their quest for internet connectivity.

The AFCI demands:
* No copyright laws!
* Internets connectivity from every stone!
* Removal of all weapons of mass destruction aimed at the internets borders!

Pirate Bay Chairman of the Joint chiefs of staff Brokep states:

“ACFI has been working under cover for quite some time to get information on Ladonia and its goverment. We will support any action taken by ACFI against Ladonia in this matter!”

Arrr!

The AFCI goes on saying: “Surrender to our demands or we will take your castle by force!”

Stay updated on the latest developments at CAMP IRC (EFNET #IMPLODELADONIA)

Source: The Piratebay joins war against Ladonia

However, since BitTorrent is the best p2p protocol to distribure large files, it still generates almost 50 percent of the p2p traffic according to chachelogic’s data.

Source: Filesharing gains popularity in Japan

so sing along..

You are a Pirate!

WoW!

Source: You are a Pirate!

Background

Jon Newton, from Vancouver Island, BC, the founder and editor of p2pnet.net , is being sued by Nikki Hemming, ceo of the infamous Australian Kazaa p2p application. p2pnet was initially also being sued by Kazaa owner Sharman Networks.

The precedent-setting case, the first of its kind, vividly illustrates the danger of applying ancient laws to Freedom of Expression in the digital age.

Sharman and Hemming claimed they’d been libelled in p2pnet posts. But Sharman recently abandoned its case, leaving Hemming to carry the allegation that Newton defamed her in an article outlining Australian court proceedings into her assets, by herself. She also continues to demand the identity of a p2pnet reader who’d posted an anonymous comment included in the same story.

“Our Canadian libel laws say ‘Guilty until proven innocent’ and if Hemming wins, Canadian bloggers might as well pack up and close their Net accounts because the right of online freedom of speech will be killed stone dead,” says Newton.

“And there’s something else: as far as I’m concerned, an anonymous post is the same as a confidential source. I don’t have to like a post, or even agree with it. But I believe that as an honest and responsible human being, I do have to safeguard the poster, if indeed I know who he or she is which in this case, I didn’t.”

The Rivoli doors open at 9 PM, and the cover is $10.

Leyton’s song, as well as other music donated by the participating artists, will also be on sale at the concert.

By way of a pre-concert information session / press conference, a special Online Freedom of Expression round table is also taking place at Toronto’s Centre for Social Innovation, 215 Spadina Avenue, Suite 120, Toronto, from 3 – 5PM. The round table will feature the following panelists:

Moderator: Rob Hyndman

* Jon Newton

Jon will have statements from: Phillipa Lawson of CIPPIC, Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, BC media lawyer Dan Burnett who’s representing Jon in his upcoming libel case with Kazaa boss Nikki Hemming, and Jason Munning of Ten Mile Tide, the former Kazaa poster band which dropped its association with Sharman Networks and put its albums online for free to protest the libel action.

* Jason Young of Deeth Williams Wall
* Michael Pilling of OpenPolitics.ca
* Russell McOrmond of Digital Copyright Canada

For additional information contact Neil Leyton at nleyton@gmail.com, or Tina Siegel at tina.siegel@gmail.com.

Saturday August 5th, the Rivoli Restaurant & Club (332 Queen St. West, Toronto)

Artists: Aceface, Dennis O’Toole, Kobotown, Lindy, and Neil Leyton.

Source: Online Freedom of Speech Fundraiser

SqrtBoy is known for his work on Torrent Trader Lite, VBTT, IPBTT and other several BitTorrent tracker php/mysql scripts. It is great to see that someone is proposing a standard for BitTorrent rss feeds.

Every webmaster probably has his own thoughts about how the perfect rss feed would look, but this document is definitely a step forward.

SqrtBoy told TorrentFreak:

I have found that each rss feed was different from one site to another, and from a BitTorrent script to another. The multiplication and organization of different feeds formats was leading to confusion and was making it difficult to read in rss clients, and also some other feed indexing applications. The purpose of this document is to give some recommendations to webmasters on how a rss 2.0 BitTorrent related feed should be designed, so maybe we can see a standard appearing.

I think it is extremely important to have a proper standard for BitTorrent rss feeds, especially since the number of people that get their latest torrents though feedreaders, media players and BitTorrent clients is growing.

Using the same feed style will only benefit the usability of BitTorrent & rss, and their implementation in feed based TV players like Democracy, Fireant and IM.

BitTorrent RSS 2.0 Feed Specifications White Paper

Source: Towards a RSS 2.0 BitTorrent Standard

Guba recently signed a deal with Warner Bros. to spread DRM loaded movies and TV-shows online.

According to the press release “GUBA is filtering movies and TV shows using a proprietary technology, codenamed “Johnny.” Johnny analyzes video in digitized form and generates a unique fingerprint for each video. Once Johnny has scanned a video, that video is blocked from illegal file trading or distribution on GUBA’s site”.

The MPAA responded:

“Providing consumers legitimate ways to get movie and television programming online is essential to our industry,” said Chairman and CEO of MPAA, Dan Glickman. Collaborating with GUBA has given us an opportunity to test new technology that will help ensure consumers can freely share videos without being exposed to illegal programming, which could lead to copyright infringement.”

Source: MPAA & Guba to use Johnny

In the documentary “done the impossible” the fans tell their part of this success story. They explain why and how they managed to get their Firefly heroes on the white screen in the popular movie Serenity.

The makers of the documentary offer a free, Creative Commons licensed .torrent download of their film. They state:

In our opinion, the modern state of copyright is counter productive to creativity and free culture. It puts unnatural restraints on “fair use”, hinders the creative process and has fundamentally destroyed an entire industry before it was even born.

Personally I’m impressed with the quality of this documentary, I highly recommend this one if you are interested in the story behind Firefly and Serenity.

You can view the trailer over here or download (.torrent) Done the impossible

Source: Done The Impossible .Torrent

Cheggit went public nearly a day ago but the torrent site already has 20806 registered users, a great success for a site that’s just starting.

Cheggit implements some neat features like a wiki and a tag based search engine.

Cheggit out

Source: Cheggit is Live

The leaders of Britain, Canada, Russia, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and the United States agreed to combat piracy. Among other points they state:

Combating trade in pirated and counterfeit products is a complex problem which assumes, in the context of globalization, a transborder character, and can only be solved through individual and joint efforts by all nations and relevant international organizations. In that regard, we note the usefulness of international congresses and workshops devoted to effective protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights.

In the meanwhile the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) asked Margaret Beckett, Britain’s Foreign Secretary to urge Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, to do something about the music download website AllofMP3“>allofmp3.com.

However, the problem is that allofmp3.com is handling in accordance with Russia’s laws.

It is unclear if Putin considers taking down allofmp3.com, but he did make a public statement about Iran’s nuclear program, the situation in the Middle East, and on the Korean Peninsula.

Source: World Leaders Discuss Piracy

Most site owners were offered a fixed sum of money and a percentage of the future ad revenue on top of that. Similar to the proposition the made to Meganova.

Moreover, this recent confession makes me wonder what’s really going on at Empornium. Let’s ask a former Empornium admin…

TorrentFreak: Is there, to your knowledge some kind of ownership agreement between Targetpoint and Emporniums former owner Sazaraki?

Emp admin: To the best of my knowledge, yes.

TorrentFreak: What is the nature of this contract?

Emp admin: The rough outline was, the contract would call for a couple of lump sum cash payments by Targetpoint, with the last bit paid upon transfer of the domain name. Sazaraki was to remain on for some time as head admin to smooth the transition. He intended to use the cash payment to pay for professional development of new site code. At the time these negotiations were taking place, Jan-Feb 05, the site was dying under the strain of the large number of users — load times were slow, timeouts were common, and staff were spending many hours every day simply manually correcting user’s stats because the tracker was timing out on them. The contract called for Saz to continue to receive a share of the ad revenue for the next year, for a token monthly payment to hand out to staff, and for Targetpoint to pay the salary for a professional backend sysop of Saz’s choosing. It also called for Sazaraki and the original admin team to retain access to the boxes and 100%
editorial control during this 1 year period.

After an initial payment was made and the domain was transferred, Targetpoint proposed changing the deal. The deal essentially remained the same, but Targetpoint was to become an investor, rather than buy the site outright. The only significant changes were that they would not pay another cash payment, it was now a permanent partnership rather than an ownership transition, and Targetpoint agreed to pay for a professional site development house of saz’s choosing to improve Empornium, rather than have us build a new site.

TorrentFreak: How much money is involved, and who paid the money?

Emp admin: The money was payed by Or Kunztman, CEO of Targetpoint. As far as the amouunt of the monthly minimum that he was paid, I don’t feel it’s my place to say.

TorrentFreak: Who is in control of the site at this very moment?

Emp admin: I’m sure today it’s just as it was last week. Or Kuntzman and Targetpoint control the money, Oded makes the day to day decisions, Arjan (aka Noos) does the tech stuff.

This is supported by the list of admins on empornium.us

TorrentFreak: What made you decide to leave emporium?

Emp admin: The admins realized last year, shortly after the deal was made, that they were not living up to their end of the agreement. We were constantly having Arjan login to our boxes doing stuff without permission… like that whole “Piratebay Moderated Network” banner that caused such a controversy… Slipping in more and more obtrusive Targetpoint ads, which he wasn’t supposed to do without Saz’s approval.

TorrentFreak: Do you know why he put The Piratebay banner up?

Emp admin: No. At the time there was speculation that it was a “google bomb” … that they were trying to steal hits from TPB when people searched on google, they’d hit on Empornium and draw more eyeballs to Targetpoint’s ads… but that’s just speculation. I have no personal knowledge of their involvement with TPB

Emp admin (continues):

So they weren’t paying the monthly payments, weren’t hiring the professionals they had promised. we knew they were screwing us. So some of us started development work on Cheggit.net. We hung around because we were never in this for the money, we got into this for the community, and the money was intended to improve the site because it was dying under the load it had grown so big. If we had left at that time, we would’ve been box-banned and that would’ve been the end of that community. So we swallowed our pride and did Targetpoint’s gruntwork while simultaneously working on cheggit.net. We knew a day would come when we couldn’t stomach it anymore, we just didn’t know when, and we hoped we would have a new working site before that day came.

Then they’re new site rollout happened

We had a working beta site on Cheggit… not perfect yet, but the nuts and bolts were there, we knew we were close… just adding on the non-essentials … the “pretty stuff”. And there was Sazaraki’s reaction to the whole new “pay to signup” site rollout that the rest of us had to consider. Sazaraki got fed up, abandoned ownership of the IRC channel, logged out of Empornium and told us he was quitting. Despite Arjan’s claims, we did not do any attacking on Empornium, the rest of what happened was the user’s reaction. We have a loyal community. Targetpoint never understood that.

TorrentFreak: How many of the original staff members are still at emporium?

Emp admin: Save for Saz, who is bound by his contract, ALL of the original Empornium staff, mods and admins alike, were a part of the development and/or beta of the new site, and all of us have left.

TorrentFreak: Thanks.

The nature of the contract described by this former Empornium admin is similar to the one offered to Meganova. Although Targetpoint officially denies that they have an ownership agreement with empornium.

TorrentFreak contacted Targetpoint and they responded with the fillowing statement:

Its very simple. Targetpoint do not own in any way Empornium.us. We never owned it and we shall never will. Targetpoint only connection to Empornium was advertising business relations. No more.

Source: Empornium: Targetpoint Sold Us Out!

According to Cnet BitTorrent teamed up with more movie studios to distribute movies online

“The filmmakers that signed with BitTorrent are Hart Sharp Video, Egami Media (a subsidiary of Image Entertainment), Koch Entertainment and The Orchard. Videos offered include documentaries, feature-length and short films, live music concerts, comedy recordings and TV programming.”

At this point it is unclear when these services will lauch and what the prices will be.

Source: More Movie Deals For BitTorrent

Piratebay founder Fredrik Neij said to Svenska Dagbladet on Wednesday:

“If there is money left over, it will go to us who work at Pirate Bay as salaries”

This could mean trouble according to prosecutor HÃ¥kan Roswall

“It is going to be an entirely different penalty if it turns out they earn money through their work”

In the meanwhile big corporations like broadband provider Verizon are lining up to advertise their goods to the bandwidth craving pirates ;)

via 1 and 2

Source: Ads Could Kill The Piratebay

Ownage.

Torrent Raiders is an arcade-style video game and a dynamic network visualization. Driven in real-time by the activity of bit torrent swarms, Torrent Raiders takes place on the ad-hoc networks created by bit torrent users. Torrent Raiders playfully addresses issues of domestic surveillance, amidst the recent revelation of the Bush administration’s illegal wiretapping and the increasingly Orwellian nature of our so-called “homeland security”. Players take on the role of a government agent tasked with surveilling the ad-hoc networks generated by torrents linked to copyrighted material.

A Beta built of the game will be ready January 2007.

Torrent Raiders

Source: Torrent Raiders: BitTorrent The Game

Although the demand for Microsoft’s second Vista Beta is extremely high, Microsoft refused to release a torrent for “security” reasons.

At the Gnomedex conference Chris Pirillo, one of the organizers, and the initiator of vistatorrent.com received a nice “gift” from Microsoft. It probably Microsoft’s way to let them know that they appreciate the initiative. Pretty funny…

Manager of Microsoft’s community team Aaron Coldiron said:

“Jake and Chris we obviously love, and we thought it was a great attempt. Of course, it does violate the EULA (End User License Agreement). Things do happen, and we thought this would be a lighthearted way to say, ‘Nice try.’ “

Source: Microsoft Frames VistaTorrent Cease and Desist Letter

According to the local, Internet hosting company PRQ had demanded the return of both paperwork and computer equipment seized by police, saying that the material had no significance for the investigation and arguing that it was vital for PRQ’s work.

However, Stockholm District Court ruled that they stay with the police a little longer, a decision that PRQ will probably appeal.

I think the Police should be worried ;)

Source: Police Will Not Return Piratebay Servers

GNi signed an agreement with BitTorrent Inc., to provide an IP transit Internet address for streaming videos at one gigabit per second. GNi’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) with BitTorrent guarantees 99.999 percent uptime.

Ashwin Navin, president and co-founder of BitTorrent stated:

“BitTorrent is emerging as a key player for distribution of video content over the Internet and needs bandwidth providers that can keep pace with our growth. GNi’s reliability and flexibility were key factors in our decision to work with them, so we can focus on the best user experience for our service.”

GNi provides multi-carrier/multi-homed Internet transit, managed services and 24/7 “remote hands” support to maximize uptime, eliminate points of failure, and provide reliable service for mission-critical applications. GNi provides their service to clients such as Symantec, HP and the Oakland Raiders. GNi guarantees 99.999% uptime and High Quality service.BitTorrent inc. is planning a video download website to distribute movies online.

Derek Wise, president and CEO of GNi said:

“We’re excited about working with BitTorrent, Their video distribution model presents some interesting challenges that allow us to demonstrate our innovative approach to delivering the best Internet services and support.”

press release

Source: GNi Selected to Support the BitTorrent.com Video Download Service

Although The DVD sniffin Dogs “Lucky and Flo” help a little bit, the pirates are on the loose. The MPAA claimes “major victories” in their war against piracy but if you take a closer look at what’s really happening… nothing

“They talk a good game, but piracy is still a very significant problem,” Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., said to LA Daily news. “It’s still basically out of control. Regardless of what they say … it’s still rampant.”

LA daily news cites James Boyle, a law professor at Duke University. He maintains that for the most part, so called “piracy” is harmless.

“When they go after people who are engaged in mass-market copying of DVDs, where they’re producing trademark goods and distributing them as if they’re the legitimate ones, there’s absolutely no doubt it’s illegal and it should be stopped and I totally support that, but, Making a mixed CD of music you legitimately own and giving it to your friend … when those kinds of things are lumped in and put under the label of piracy, then I think we do ourselves an injustice.”

Arrrrr?

Source: Pirates On The Loose

Firefighters attacked the fire from a ship, but it is unknown if they succeeded and what the damage is.

Sealand and it’s hosting company havenco have no regulations concerning copyright, patents, libel, restrictions on political speech, non-disclosure agreements, cryptography, restrictions on maintaining customer records, tax or mandatory licensing, DMCA, music sharing services, or other issues; child pornography is the only content explicitly prohibited.

BBC

Source: Sealand on Fire

Among the claims by Valence Media (Torrentspy) is that as part of its attempt to gather information on Torrentspy, the MPAA hired private investigators to comb the trash cans of Torrentspy executives. Valence Media obtained this information from Robert Anderson (alleged hacker), who for undisclosed reasons has agreed to help the company against the Hollywood industry group.

It’s unclear what prompted Anderson to cooperate with Torrentspy and risk possible criminal prosecution. “The only person that would know the precise answer to that is him,” Rothken (Torrentspy’s lawyer) said. “We believe that he broke the law in a serious manner…we’re encouraged that after making a big mistake he’s now mitigating his wrongdoing by providing information about things he did so we can take remedial action against the MPAA.”

A remarkable turn of events

read more

Source: MPAA Hacker Now Working with Torrentspy

In an attempt to decrease the bandwidth generated by BitTorrent traffic, ISP’s started to shape and throttle BitTorrent traffic on their networks. By throttling BitTorrent traffic the speed of BitTorrent downloads decrease, and high speed downloads are out of the question.

While other popular clients decided to implement encryption to protect BitTorrent users from being slowed down by their ISP’s. Bram Cohen, the creator of the BitTorrent protocol and the developer of the mainline BitTorrent client did not think that encryption was the solution, and found a more ISP friendly alternative.

The mainline BitTorrent client rather uses caching instead of encrypting. The “Cache Discovery Protocol” allows ISP’s to detect the most popular torrents, cache the data, and seed it. ISP’s like it because it’s cheaper to use bandwidth within their network than to use external traffic. So in the near future it could be that you’re downloading your favorite torrents from your ISP’s server instead of some random seed or peer at the other side of the globe.

Ashwin Navin from BitTorrent inc reported to slyck:

“Transparent caches are sophisticated pieces of hardware, they perform deep-packet inspection to detect the frequency of certain files. If a file shows up on the network frequently, the cache stores that file so that its seeded in the network rather than by peers. ISPs appreciate this because their access networks are terribly congested with P2P traffic. Caches are legal and covered explicitly in the DMCA.”

So are these developments good or bad?

Well that’s hard to say at this point. It is unclear if it will increase or decrease speeds, it is unclear how this will affect ratio’s and what the legal consequences are.

BitTorrent 4.20

Source: BitTorrent 4.20 Implements Cache Discovery Protocol

Ipoque studied survey anonymized date supplied by some large German network operators and concludes:

Illegal P2P file sharing has had tremendous effects on the film and music industry. Now they are struggling to curb Internet piracy. ipoque’s survey demonstrates that user behavior remains unaffected by their efforts. The massive police action initiated by the state prosecutor’s office of Cologne, Germany, supported by the German branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) caused a short-term decrease of P2P downloads of 15%. In the course of only three weeks, download volume bounced back to its previous level.

And the future?

ipoque predicts that such massive legal actions will not significantly change the overall amount of illegal downloads. It will only drive users to new, more elusive file sharing platforms

A while ago we already reported about the ineffectiveness of p2p raids.

On February 21 The Belgian police managed to shut down Razorback2′s servers. Razorback2 was considered to be the heart of the Edonkey2000 network, with over a million users. However, Cachelogic’s Vice President David Ferguson concluded from their traffic statistics on the Edonkey2000 network that it had NO EFFECT on Edonkey’s traffic. It just relocated the problem.

Source: P2P Raids and Lawsuits Just don’t Work

Starting in the next beta series, LimeWire will feature BitTorrent integration and a custom DHT. Keep a look out for what’s next!

Interesting…

Source: Limewire To Include BitTorrent Support

Swedish secretary of state Dan Eliasson confirmed the information stating:

I know that the USA has opinions as it comes to the effectiveness of our system when it comes to copyright and that Sweden and other countries aren’t following thier international agreements. There are sanction mechanisms in the USA, and this has been pointed out from their side.

The threats were successful, and Swedish politicians demanded the takedown of The Piratebay, which is obviously wrong. Toba from the Piratebay says:

In Sweden it is considered very important that the politicians do not interfere with certain cases of police work. So you might understand why people here are so pissed off about Bush, MPAA, fucking Tom Cruise or whoever it was being behind this big sabotage against The Pirate Bay.

More details in the subtitled Swedish news item below.

The torrent can be found here

Or watch in on Youtube

Source: Sweden threatened with Trade Sanctions by the US over the Piratebay

There’s a whole slew of companies trying to dream up ways to stop people from freely using CDs and DVDs they’ve bought and paid for, and let’s not forget all those high-priced lawyers getting fat on ‘copyright crime’.

Over in Hong Kong, they’re even churning out Intellectual Property Merit Badges for the Scouting movement (roll over, Baden-Powell) and back in the US of A, a whole industry has sprung up to print subpoenas so the software, moie and music cartels can sue their customers with greater facility.

Now, there’s something else.

You’re in the movie, watching the latest Hollywood disaster when suddenly kaPOWeee! A blinding light illuminates the person sitting next to you.

Would it be that bad? Probably not.

But you never know because the Georgia Institute of Technology says it’s prototyped a device that can locate a digital camera and then overwhelm it with, “white light to render any recorded images useless”.

However, “the device is unable to block conventional film or the SLR cameras, preferred by the paparazzi,” continues the BBC.

Heading up the development team is professor Gregory Abowd of the Georgia Tech College of Computing and, “In particular, his team is looking at ways to prevent photography in government buildings or at trade shows, where industrial espionage could be a problem,” says the Beeb, adding:

“The team is also working with the motion picture industry to prevent illegal copying of films, which has become a particular problem in parts of Asia.”

The Georgia Institute of Technology appears to have an inordinate fondness for this kind of gear

Last year, it came up with a system able to detect a digital camera and then blind it by shooting a beam of light at the lens and it, too, had a prototype. But this comprised a digital projector with a modified video camera mounted on top.

Nor are the Georgia Tech developers alone.

In 2005, Hewlett-Packard, an enthusiastic supporter of the entertainment and software cartels, applied for a patent on technology that could remotely blur pictures in digital cameras.

For now, however, the industry mostly relies on the alertness of staff at cinemas, which isn’t to say the MUTU (Movie Ushers’ Trade Union), representing movie ushers, isn’t alert to possible dangers. In fact, MUTU is contemplating a pre-emptive action against the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America).

Currently, Ushers wearing electronic night-vision optics are a principal form of defense against kids with cam-corders, made by the likes of Sony, one of the MPAA’s owners.

But, “Imagine what would happen if ‘blinders’ are widely adopted,” MUTU PR person Marigold Butekick told p2pnet.

“Thousands of cinema ushers and support workers such as pop-corn makers could suddenly find themselves out of work. Deprived of their livelihoods, they’d be evicted from their homes and their children would go shoeless and starve, and pretty soon ……….”

p2pnet

Source: Enlightening Anti-Piracy Tool

Some time after we started mininova there were a few people that thought that uploading spam torrents would be a good idea to advertise their “GET A FREE XBOX 360″ links (or PSP, or HDTV, or well you get the point ;)).

At this time we banned 3651 people (some of which are people who received multiple bans). To see if some country has more (persistant) spammers than others, I decided to compare some statistics.

If you take a look at the stats you’ll see that Germany has some hard-core spammers.

Source: Mininova Bans 3651 Scammers

***

For those of you who haven’t followed the Swedish news, a quite funny (or tragic) thing has surfaced: Apparently, on several different occasions, MPAAs Swedish lawyers hired a private eye to stalk me! This must’ve been very entertaining for the poor Tex Murphy clone doing the actual groundwork, as my daily activites can basically be summed up as “eat, sleep, work” (often on very odd hours).

As a starter, I’ll just note that MPAAs Swedish lawyer has forgotten to pay her bills on time on several occasions, mostly parking tickets (despite earning over $100k/year)…

Piratebay Blog

Source: MPAA Stalking Piratebay Admin

There are rumours that the Swedish government was indirectly acting on behalf of the U.S. MPAA in shutting down the site. Do you feel that your government is beholden to U.S. interests?

Oh, the MPAA said so themselves in a press release, it’s more than a rumor. Check their press release “Swedish authorities sink Pirate Bay”.

And yes, this particular fact has caused something of an uproar in Sweden. It’s widely believed that Swedish authorities were more or less ordered by a foreign power to act forcefully against an entity that was in, at worst, a legal gray area according to Swedish law.

The raid must have boosted your recognition. How many members do you currently have, and how successful has your fundraising effort been so far?

Our member count is at 6540, no, 6541, no wait, 6543… well, you get the picture. Our members register themselves on our website after paying the membership fee electronically, which helps reduce our admin load considerably.

Fundraising brought in 108,000 SEK (approx. 14,700 USD or 11,600 EUR), enough to buy 3 million ballots, which is some kind of at-least-we’re-not-starving minimum. We’re not full, but we’re not starving, either. Following the raid on the Pirate Bay, we have received another 50K in donations. My sincere thanks to everybody who wants to help out; we are now looking into getting more ballots to make sure we don’t run out on election day. (10 million ballots was our initial full-score aim.)

Do you think you will be able to cover future expenses such as radio and television ads?

Following the raid on the Pirate Bay, and our tripling of the member roster, we don’t need advertising. :-) We’ve been mentioned almost every news hour across all channels on national television in the last week.

Also, the established parties have now started to turn, following our success. Parties representing almost half of the elected parliament are now describing today’s copyright situation as not working. They still don’t understand why, though, they are just echoing what we say without understanding what the words mean. We’ll get around to teaching them – them and the voters alike.

This might be hard for people not following the Swedish media to grasp, but we have made a big splash. Today, our Minister of Justice was quoted as saying that he’s open to changes to copyright laws that would make file-sharing legal, with the headline “Bodström (his name) flip-flops about file sharing.” Immediately underneath were the Pirate Party’s comments to his suggestions. Let’s take that again: when a minister makes a statement about file sharing, media calls us for comments, and publishes them next to that statement. That’s how big we have become since the raid on the Pirate Bay.

The Minister of Justice later denied having made that statement to the press that reported it.

We will never be able to pay for television ads, the way I see it. Unless a very wealthy donor comes on stage. (If any such person is reading this, we have planned how to spend up to $375,000 in a cost-efficient way up until the elections, on the chance that donations appear. That spending does still not include any TV ads.)

Are you aware of similar initiatives in other countries?

Some are trying, but none have achieved the necessary momentum and critical mass that we have. We expect that momentum to happen once we get into Swedish Parliament and show that it can be done.

(The US Pirate Party lauched two weeks ago)

The name “Pirate Party” seems to identify the party with what is currently defined as a crime: piracy of software, movies, music, and so on. Will a name like “Pirate Party” not antagonize voters, given that the label is so negatively used? How about potential allies abroad who argue for a more balanced copyright regime, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation or Creative Commons?

Oh, it is a crime. That’s the heart of the problem! The very problem is that something that 20% of the voters are doing is illegal by punishment of jail time. That’s what we want to change. Where the established parties are saying that the voters are broken, we are saying it’s the law that is broken.

Besides, it’s a way of reclaiming a word. The media conglomerates have been pointing at us and calling us pirates, trying to make us somehow feel shame. It doesn’t work. We wear clothes saying “PIRATE” in bright colors out on the streets. Yes, we are pirates, and we’re proud of it, too.

Also, the term is not that negative at all in Sweden, much thanks to the awesome footwork of the Pirate Bureau (Piratbyrån), who have been working since 2003 to educate the public.

If you are elected, and have the opportunity to become part of the next government of Sweden, do you intend to focus only on the issues in your platform (IP law and privacy)?

Our current plan is to support the government from the parliament, but not be part of it. If we’re part of it, that means we get a vested interest to not overthrow it, which puts us in a weaker position if they start going against our interests.

Overall, our strategy is to achieve the balance of power, where both the left and right blocks need our votes to achieve a majority, and then support the issues of whichever government that agrees to drive our issues the strongest. Basically, we sell our votes on other issues to the highest bidder in exchange for them driving ours.

Have you already made any contacts in Swedish politics?

Contacts… I’m not sure what you mean. Several of us have been shaking hands with some of the established politicians, particularly in the youth leagues, if that’s what you mean.

I was thinking along the lines of exploring possible modes of cooperation with established political parties , are you already taken seriously?

We are taken seriously by most of the youth leagues and by at least one of the represented parties. In particular, which is what counts, we are now taken seriously by national media. However, we can’t tie contacts that explore modes of cooperation quite yet , since our strategy depends on holding the balance of power, we need to not express a preference for whom we’d like to cooperate with, or we’d put ourselves in a weaker bargaining position.

What is your position on moral rights, as recognized by European Union copyright laws: the right of attribution, the right to have a work published anonymously or pseudonymously, and the right to the integrity of the work. Do you think these rights should be preserved?

We safeguard the right to attribution very strongly. After all, what we are fighting for is the intent of copyright as it is described in the US constitution: the promotion of culture. Many artists are using recognition as their primary driving force to create culture.

Publishing anonymously or pseudonymously happens every day on the Internet, so no big deal there either.

The right to integrity, however, is an interesting issue. We state that we are for free sampling, meaning you can take a sound that I made for my tune and use it in your own tunes, or for that matter, a whole phrase. That’s partially in line with today’s copyright law on derivative works; as long as you add your own creative touch to a work, you get your own protection for the derivation. We want to strengthen that right.

You might want to consider the alternative. In the 50s and 60s, a lot of rock and roll bands started doing covers of old classical music. This would almost certainly have been considered to violate the integrity of the original artist – and was considered to do so by many – but in the eyes of many others, it was instead great new culture of a previously unseen form and shape.

So I don’t have a definite answer on the integrity issue. While I am leaning towards the promotion of new culture taking precedence over a limitation right, there may be unconsidered cases.

Do you feel that trademark law is adequate as it is?

Yes. We have not seen any hidden costs to trademarks that outweigh the benefits of reducing transaction costs on a market where seller and buyer are not personally acquainted.

How do you intend to deal with EU treaties which define certain legal frameworks for the protection of intellectual works?

What can they do? Fine us? Send us an angry letter?

Come on, countries need to think more like corporations. If the fine is less than the cost to society, which it is in this case, then the right thing to do is to accept the fine with a polite “thank you”.

Actually, national media just called me about this very question; the Department of Justice has stated that we can’t allow file sharing, as it would break international treaties. My response was that it is more important to not have 1.2 million Swedes criminalized, than it is to avoid paying a penalty fee.

Do you think that weaker intellectual property laws would lessen the amount of products released in Sweden by foreign companies, such as Hollywood studios?

As long as they believe that they will have a revenue here that exceeds the cost of operations, they will keep coming here. Anything else would be wrong from a corporate standpoint.

Besides, you need to remember what we are doing is to change the map according to what reality looks like. We do not want to change people’s behavior. We want to change the law so it reflects what the world actually looks like.

So, as they apparently make a profit today, I expect that to continue.

Do you feel that the music industry in its current form will still be needed in a world where non-commercial copying is permitted?

It’s not so much if they are needed where non-commercial copying is permitted, rather if they are needed when they’re not necessary any more to be the middle man between consumer and artist.

The music industry will lose its current chokepoint, because they don’t add any value to the end product any longer. They will probably survive as a service bureau for artists, but they will not be able to control distribution.

It’s actually quite simple: if they get their act together and provide a service that people want to buy, they will remain. If not, they will vanish. Today, they have legislated that people must buy their service regardless of whether it adds value or not, and that’s not gonna hold in the long term.

Why fight against intellectual property laws, instead of focusing your energy on creating freely licensed content, such as Creative Commons films or open source software?

I want to raise the issue a level, to show that it’s not about payment models or what level of control the copyright holder chooses to exert over his or her work.

Let me put it this way: we have achieved the techical possibility of sending copyrighted works in digital, private communications. I can send a piece of music in e-mail to you, I can drop a video clip in a chat room. That technology is not going away, leaving us with two choices.

So , if copyright is to be enforced , if you are to tax, prohibit, fee, fine, or otherwise hinder the transmission of copyrighted works in private communications, the only way to achieve that is to have all private communications constantly monitored. It’s really that large.

Also, this is partly nothing new. We’ve been able to do this since the advent of the Xerox copier – you could photocopy a poem or a painting and put it in a letter in the mail. Again, the only way to discover or stop that would have been for the authorities to open all letters and check their content.

So we’re at a crossroads here. Either we, as a society, decide that copyright is the greater value to society, and take active steps to give up private communications as a concept. Either that, or we decide that the ability to communicate in private, without constant monitoring by authorities, has the greater value – in which case copyright will have to give way.

My choice is clear.

The Pirate Bay was shut down and re-opened days later on a Dutch server. According to a Swedish newspaper report, traffic has doubled since then. How long do you think the cat and mouse game will continue?

Until one of two things happen: The authorities realize they can’t enforce laws that require monitoring all private communications, especially given the large international level of grassroots support, or [they] actually start monitoring all private communications.

Original article can be found at Wikinews

Source: Interview with Swedens Pirate Leader Rickard Falkvinge

Wired: When did the party start, and who started it?Allison: The party started on June 6, 2006 with two members, myself and my friend Alex English. A couple of days later, I received around 300 e-mails from people I didn’t know expressing interest in joining and helping out. This was thanks to publicity from the original Swedish party, Piratpartiet, who found out about it when I edited their Wikipedia entry to include mention of the U.S. version I founded.

Source: US Pirate Party Interview

According to an article in Variety Apple CEO Steve Jobs wants the movies to be $9.99, but the Studio’s are giving him a hard time:

Studios have resisted Jobs’ initial insistence that feature films be priced at the easy-to-remember $9.99. After all, library titles are typically sold to Wal-Mart and Best Buy significantly cheaper than new releases. Studios now are trying to convince Apple to sell similar content at multiple price points, something the company has never done.

the article continues:

Also complicating the deals: The studios are working out terms with a host of other distributors, including Amazon, Movielink and BitTorrent, in part to make sure that one company does not dominate. It seems that none of the studios wants to be first in making a deal with Apple. Disney would be the logical leader, but even they are cautious, fearing it will look like in-house synergy rather than a business decision.

And the rumors go on, there are “insiders” suggesting that the movie store wil be “BitTorrent powered, and that people can earn credits if they share bandwidth. This could go through the torrent client that will be included in OS X 10.5 “Leopard”.

Last month it was announced that BitTorrent users could save for free goodies from the Itunes store, if they help to distribute software updates.

Source: Apple’s Movie Download Store

Lars Ilshammar, an information-technology historian who recently suggested Sweden to impose a fee similar to the one proposed in France said to the IHT:

“The process for change has now begun in Sweden, but it’s clear that this problem cannot be solved by one country alone,” said “More countries have to come out of the closet.”

One thing is for sure. Things will, and must change. Don’t expect that the copyright restrictions will disappear, but we will definitely need more “rights” to copy. It almost seems like the easier it gets to share things, the harder the restrictions get. I mean, come on, how insane are those people if they request to take down clips of children dancing on their favorite song on youtube or google video? Uma Suthersanen, a professor of international copyright law at Queen Mary, a college at the University of London sums it up quite nice:

“The way it works now, it is a little as if you give the consumer a lollipop, and then smack them over their heads, saying that they can’t use what they’ve bought,”

Go Pirates.

Source: Sympathy for the Pirate

But there’s more, all previous winners of “the world’s strangest little film festival” are available at BitTorrent.com, high res, or ipod format.

This collaboration makes it possible for movie fans all over the world to download and watch the independent movies created for the annual Duke City Shootout. During the festival the authors of seven 12-minute screenplays will be selected to come to New Mexico to make their movies using digital equipment. The Festival takes place July 21 to 29.

Lily Lin, BitTorrents director of communications , confirmed the deal and said:

the collaboration with the film institute and Shootout is indicative of BitTorrent’s desire to continue making the content of independent artists available while also moving toward partnerships with large motion picture studios.

That’s the way we like to see it!

press release

Source: Free “Duke City Shootout” Movie Downloads

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Source: The Corruptibles