The researchers surveyed a few hundred undergraduate students who were asked if they would buy the single “Right Round” from rapper Flo Rida for X amount of money. The price tag for the song was based on the last two digits of their social security number, ranging from 0 to 98 cents. The regular 99 cent price was excluded.

The students further had to indicate the likelihood of being faced by a lawsuit from the RIAA and what the expected settlement costs would be. On top of this, they were asked to fill out a morality questionnaire along with questions regarding their download behavior, all anonymously.

With this data in hand the researchers were able to draw some interesting conclusions.

First of all, they found that the students who were said to have pirated their latest track, were willing to pay less for the “Right Round” song. For every $0.01 students were willing to pay more, the likelihood decreased that their last song was pirated by 0.3%.

Even though the researchers claim that this means that pirates are cheapskates, it could also mean that pirates don’t like the song “Right Round” from rapper Flo Rida that much. Perhaps they have different music tastes?

Taste aside, the researchers conclude that dropping the price of a single track to $0.63 would decrease piracy by 50%.

Besides the pricing issue, the study also showed that pirates (compared to non-pirates) think the chance of getting sued by the RIAA is relatively small, and that the settlement fees are lower. The usual conclusion from this data would be that pirates are well informed since their guesses were closer to the real answer, but the researchers twist it somewhat different.

“If the goal of the RIAA was solely to deter piracy, it should not have abandoned its policy of suing the people it caught pirating digital music,” they write, referring to RIAA’s promises to stop mass-lawsuits against copyright infringers.

The latest insight from the study is that those who indicated that they had pirated their latest addition to their music library scored lower on the morality ‘proxy’ scale. However, the researchers note that the mean and modal respondents score very high on morality, which basically means that pirates are more normal (morality wise) than those who pay for music.

To summarize, the study makes it look like pirates are immoral cheapskates, but all it really suggests is that the music industry should lower the price of downloads if they want to sell more music and increase their net profit.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

According to a recently published paper by Prithula Dhungel, Di Wub and Keith Ross, these effort are a waste of time and money. In the paper titled “Measurement and mitigation of BitTorrent leecher attacks,” the researchers show that BitTorrent swarms are hardly influenced by attacks from anti-piracy outfits.

The research looked into the effectiveness of two popular attack methods used by companies such as MediaDefender. The first is a ‘piece attack’ where the hostile leecher attempts to slow down downloads by creating as many hash fails as possible. The second method is the ‘connection attack’ where the hostile leechers try to tie up as many TCP connections as possible in order to make it impossible for downloaders to connect to real peers.

The different methods were tested in a real-life BitTorrent swarm of a popular music album that was targeted by these attacks. “We present measurement results for a torrent for a new album, which was verified to be under attack,” the researchers report, adding “This popular album was released a few weeks before our experiments. At the time of the experiment, it held the number 1 position on the UK album chart and iTunes ranking list.”

The researchers then downloaded the ‘attacked’ torrent several times with both Azureus (Vuze) and uTorrent. For each download they recorded the time it took to complete, both with and without using blocklist software that bans (some) of the attackers’ IP-addresses.

The results were quite remarkable. The researchers found that, on average, downloads with a blocklist were 30 to 35% faster. In other words, the efforts of the anti-piracy outfits do slow down the targeted swarms, but only for a few minutes at most, and not long enough to deter anyone from downloading.

A more detailed look at the peer distribution of the two BitTorrent clients further reveals that without the IP-filters, uTorrent encounters only 2% of malicious peers, who all use the ‘piece attack’ method. Azureus on the other hand encountered no ‘piece attack’ peers at all, but 18% ‘connection attack’ peers.

Not surprisingly, the researchers conclude from their research that the methods used to attack BitTorrent swarms are highly ineffective. “The anti-P2P companies are not currently successful at stopping the distribution of targeted assets over BitTorrent. We have also found that blacklist-based IP filtering is insufficient to filter out all the attackers,” the researchers write.

What the researchers have overlooked is that both Azureus and uTorrent have implemented various technological measures against these automated attacks. The results may differ for other BitTorrent clients. Azureus (now Vuze) has put a lot of work in preventing ‘piece attacks’ and uTorrent has implemented similar anti-pollution measures.

The overall conclusion put forward in the article is most likely the right one, and to most people not even that surprising. The millions of dollars spent by the entertainment industry to protect their works from being shared on BitTorrent is at best only a mild annoyance to the ‘pirates’.

Via.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

From the start it was clear that the only thing that the jury had to decide on would be the the size of the fine. The fair use defense was thrown out a few hours before the trial started, which shut down the only escape route left.

Tenenbaum’s defense team, headed by Harvard Professor Charles Nesson and his law students, were left powerless. “Undoubtedly, we were a creative and nontraditional legal team. But going into trial, we were stripped of all our attempts to mitigate Joel’s liability, so today’s outcome has been in the cards all week,” student Debbie Rosenbaum wrote.

This is the second win in little over a month for the RIAA. In June, Jammie Thomas-Rasset lost her retrial against the RIAA and was ordered to pay $1.92 million for the 24 songs she shared via Kazaa.

RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy told TorrentFreak that the ‘damages’ will not go to any of the artists, but to more anti-piracy campaigns. “Any funds recouped are re-invested into our ongoing education and anti-piracy programs,” he said.

In total, the RIAA has spent over a million dollars on this case alone, to set an example to the millions of people who share files every day. Time will tell whether or not the verdict will have any impact at all, aside from ruining a student’s life and alienating a few million music fans.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

“DRM serves all sorts of pro-consumer purposes,” he said at the time, without going into detail about the alleged benefits.

However, in the year that followed the numbers of consumers calling for DRM-free music increased and more labels and music services started to offer music without digital restrictions. Still, the RIAA was not convinced that there could be a future without it, and predicted a comeback for DRM last year.

Quite the opposite happened. Although DRM is still present in the majority of the legal music stores, most of the big players have decided to ditch it. Most importantly Apple announced in early 2009 that all music sold via the iTunes store would be free of DRM. This time even the RIAA doesn’t believe that it can be resurrected.

Jonathan Lamy, chief spokesperson for the RIAA declared DRM dead, when he was asked about the RIAA’s view on DRM for an upcoming SCMagazine article. “DRM is dead, isn’t it?” Lamy said, referring to the DRM-less iTunes store and other online outfits that now offer music without restrictions.

Update July 20: Yes, it seemed to good to be true and it is. We just learned the the RIAA never used the word dead in its reply to the reporter. Lamy told TorrentFreak that he only said that there is almost no DRM on (downloaded) music anymore nowadays. In other (our) words: it’s an endangered species, not extinct.

When the most vocal forefighters of DRM say so, it must be for real. Although this is the first time that the RIAA have actually said on record that DRM is dead, other players in the music industry have seen the light before them. Most notable IFPI, who said earlier this year that stripping DRM would “significantly boost download sales.”

In this we have to agree with them. All DRM has ever done is annoy consumers who actually paid for their music. No single piece of DRM has ever stopped anyone from pirating music, it’s quite the opposite as the music industry now realizes.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

BDE doesn’t want to limit their service to music downloads though, and they recently introduced a groundbreaking new feature.

According to the press release issued yesterday they are about to “shake up the online media industry.” Their masterplan? They will implement new technology that will allow their users to share photos, videos and even documents with each other.

This announcement is indeed quite a shocker. However, the press release has more surprises in it, such as the following product endorsement (or warning) by a ‘web hacker’ named Jonathan James.

“Jonathan James, Web Hacker spoke of the endless possibilities the software provides to the Kazaa community. “They are going to come at you like they came at ‘tereastarr,’” the press release reads.

First of all, it is kind of strange to include an endorsement from a seemingly unknown hacker in a press release. This aside, the statement doesn’t make much sense at all to those who have never heard of ‘tereastarr,’ and even less sense to those who do.

As P2P blog points out, ‘tereastarr’ was the Kazaa username of Jammie Thomas who was slapped with a $1.92 million verdict in her case against the RIAA last month. Thomas had been found guilty of sharing 24 songs using Kazaa, and was fined $80,000 per track.

Not really the sort of person you want to refer to in a press-release to ‘promote’ a product, unless you want to imply that the people who use your legal service might face such fines as well. The strangeness doesn’t stop there though.

The quote attributed to Jonathan James is in fact a quote from Jammie Thomas’ lawyer Joe Sibley who used the one-liner in her trial.

To make things even more disturbing, the web hacker Jonathan James most likely refers to Jonathan Joseph James, a convicted NASA hacker who ended his own life last year at the age of 24. Again, not an ideal person to quote and a particularly unhelpful image to paint when promoting a product.

The sentence has now been removed from the original press release indicating that Kazaa indeed regrets publishing this fabricated and insulting quote. Nevertheless, it can still be found online on several sites that copied the original release.

So what happened here? Did Kazaa think it was funny to put the names of Thomas and James in its press release? Have they lost their minds completely? We sincerely hope that this wasn’t intentional and that they’ve been pranked by some wannabe PR-agency.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

High ranking people at the record labels soon declared victory claiming that justice had been served. However, many of the artists to which the record label executives owe their well paid salaries are disgusted by the outcome of the case and the witch-hunt on their fans.

One of the artists that has shared his disappointment at the disproportionate fines is the American musician Moby. “Argh. what utter nonsense,” he writes on his website. “This is how the record companies want to protect themselves? Suing suburban moms for listening to music? Charging $80,000 per song?” he questions.

“I don’t know, but ‘it’s better to be feared than respected’ doesn’t seem like such a sustainable business model when it comes to consumer choice. How about a new model of ‘it’s better to be loved for helping artists make good records and giving consumers great records at reasonable prices’?”

Moby is right that the sue and scare tactics of the RIAA are not the ideal business model in the long run. However, thus far they have made millions from all the settled cases alone. In recent years over 30,000 people have allegedly settled with the RIAA for an average of $3500 dollars. This means that the RIAA have raked in more than 100 million dollars without even having to go to court.

In the UK, a coalition of top artists have spoken out against the actions of a music industry that chooses to criminalize their fans, and expressed their growing discomfort with record labels abusing copyrights for their own benefit.

Radiohead, who are also part of the coalition, even showed interest in testifying against the RIAA in the case of a Boston University student also accused of sharing several music recordings. Tenenbaum’s troubles started in 2003 when the RIAA rejected an offer to settle for $500. After a few more settlement attempts and legal quibbles, the case eventually went to court.

Moby, a proponent of Net Neutrality – another topic dear to most file-sharers – is equally dissatisfied with the RIAA’s tactics. In his view, it would be better for both artists and fans to end all the legal quibbles and focus on the art of music instead.

“I’m so sorry that any music fan anywhere is ever made to feel bad for making the effort to listen to music,” Moby writes, ending his blog post with some solid advice for the record labels that pump millions of dollars into the non-profit organization.

“The RIAA needs to be disbanded,” he writes.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The case went up for re-trial before a new jury, who found her guilty and surprisingly handed out even harsher fines than in the first trial. Thomas-Rasset was ordered to pay $80,000 per infringement mounting up to a total of $1.92 million in fines.

Thomas-Rasset, like many others, couldn’t believe her ears when the court read out the verdict, and later said that it was “kind of ridiculous”.

Unlike most people, Thomas-Rasset never opted to settle with the RIAA, determining that she had the law on her side. Unfortunately for her the jury in this landmark case ruled she did not.

“We appreciate the jury’s service and that they take this issue as seriously as we do,” said Cara Duckworth, an RIAA spokeswoman. “We are pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable. Since day 1, we have been willing to settle the case and remain willing to do so.”

In the US juries can hand out fines up to an unbelievable $150,000 per infringement on a single song. The average settlement in related RIAA cases is around $3000, which is peanuts considering this recent verdict. In this light many people might be inclined to settle with the RIAA even when they don’t even own a computer.

How’s that for a business model?

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

In their most recent writeup TechCrunch published new details which were provided by another source, and in the article they hint at the following doomsday scenario. “Their parent company [CBS] supplied user data to the RIAA, and that the data could possibly be used in civil and criminal actions against those users.” TechCrunch makes it sound really scary, but how useful is this data really in a court of law?

Let’s start with a little background. Last.fm’s data is provided by its users who report their recently listened-to songs to allow the site to track their listening habits. The data comes from the ID3 tags or similar metadata formats that MP3s and other digital music files carry. These list the artist name, title of the track, name of the album and more info related to the music file.

So what can the RIAA do with this data? Since the metadata doesn’t state that a track was pirated, only pre-release tracks that appear on Last.fm would be worth looking into. However, since the RIAA only have access to metadata reported to the site there is not much they can prove with it, even if they have access to Last.fm’s entire database.

The RIAA would only be able to check which IP addresses played a music file tagged as ‘track X’ by ‘artist Y’, but since everyone can easily edit these tags they can never really be certain that an individual was indeed in possession of the track, let alone that they shared it with others.

So, suggesting that the RIAA is going to use Last.fm’s data (if they indeed got their hands on it) to go after file-sharers is complete nonsense. As evidence, Last.fm’s data is not going to be worth much in court. In fact, there are plenty of better ways to track down copyright infringers and the RIAA is well aware of that. They are experts by now.

The only thing the RIAA has to do is hire someone to monitor various public BitTorrent trackers where the music is traded, and they can easily catch thousands of people in the act. The upside of this method is that they can verify that the person on the other end is actually sharing the data. Plus, they will know that the files are indeed the titles they are looking for.

The RIAA of course knows all of this, and if they indeed requested the data it was for purposes other than taking legal action. So, assuming that the RIAA was indeed requesting data from Last.fm, why would they want to know what music people are listening to on their computers?

Most likely the RIAA is interested in the business intelligence value of the data. For years record labels have been tailoring their music releases to the listening habits of ‘pirates’, and it is not unlikely that they are interested in Last.fm’s data for similar purposes. IP-addresses can come in handy here to spot some of the regional differences in popularity of artists or tracks.

Whatever their reasons are, dragging pirates to court is not likely to be one of them. Perhaps the TechCrunch tipster is an insider at one of the record labels who wants to scare the shit out of Last.fm’s users? Or has Michael Arrington himself been hired as one of the footsoldiers in the RIAA’s war on piracy? Who knows, but anything is more plausible than the RIAA taking people to court for reporting “copyright infringing” metadata to Last.fm.

Update: Apparently Last.fm’s official client also does fingerprinting as LANjackal points out. However, the ‘evidence’ would still be far from usable in court.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

We don’t make (much) music here at the Free Software Foundation, so it’s natural for people to wonder why the FSF has been standing up for individuals targeted by lawsuits launched by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Most recently we filed an *amicus curiae* brief in the case of *Sony BMG Music Entertainment, et al. v. Joel Tenenbaum* showing the RIAA’s theory of statutory damage awards to be unconstitutional.

Some would prefer that we refrain from fighting these lawsuits, suggesting that they are a distraction from the FSF’s core charter. But opposing them is actually an important part of our mission to support free software. First, these lawsuits represent a concerted attempt to rewrite copyright law in a way that threatens to undermine the ultimate goals of the free software movement. Second, a vocal minority in the entertainment industry uses these lawsuits as warrants to justify DRM technology and other measures to monitor and control the flow of information over the internet. Third, if unopposed, these lawsuits create a culture in which people are afraid to share, presuming sharing to be theft.

In their response to our brief, the RIAA says, “The FSF is not a neutral friend of the Court. Rather, FSF is an organization dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistribution, and modifying computer programs, classic intellectual property, much like the sound recordings at issue in this case [*sic*].” It’s unclear what legal aim the RIAA lawyers from the firms of Holme Roberts & Owen and Dwyer & Collora think they are accomplishing with this attack. Having an interest in the outcome of a case is the reason organizations file such briefs. William Rehnquist defined *amicus curiae* as, “a phrase that literally means ‘friend of the court’ — someone who is not a party to the litigation, but who believes that the court’s decision may affect its interest.”

But here, it is the public’s interest that we are defending, not our own. While we don’t agree — as the RIAA claims — that we are more “virulent” than an organization that intimidates everyone from the elderly to college students to the severely disabled into either paying “settlement” money or facing the crushing expenses of defending against unwarranted prosecution in faraway jurisdictions, the RIAA is correct that the FSF does have a position on copyright. Although we are primarily concerned not with music, but with how software can be made and shared so as to benefit and empower everyone, neither are the impacts of the RIAA’s actions restricted to the distribution of music. Their lawsuits are a deliberate campaign to rewrite copyright law through the courts. They are attempting to set precedents which will affect all works governed by copyright law, including software.

The RIAA, which in its litigation campaign represents exclusively EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and their affiliates, would like to change copyright to be an ordinary physical property right. Through these lawsuits, they seek to establish near exclusive permanent control over each and every use of the recordings their members distribute, expanding the power of copyright owners to include things which are not part of the existing body of law, and extracting financial penalties from the largely defenseless individuals accused of disobeying them.

But copyright is not and was not intended to be a right like this. In fact, copyright requires that the public give up some of its rights, such as to free speech and free association, in order to promote another of its fundamental interests — progress in the sciences and useful arts. In “Misinterpreting Copyright,” FSF president Richard Stallman draws an analogy between this tradeoff and government procurement. When doing any kind of purchasing necessary to do the public’s work, the government seeks (if imperfectly) to minimize the amount of taxpayer money spent to obtain the needed goods. This means paying a price that suppliers will find acceptable, while avoiding being gouged by those suppliers who may claim that the goods are worth a lot more than they really are. When the U.S. Navy was accused of paying Lockheed $640 per toilet seat for some of its aircraft, people were understandably outraged, because the government had squandered the public’s money.

In the case of copyright, it’s the public’s freedom that the government is spending, to obtain in return for the public scientific and cultural goods. Right now, governments are squandering this freedom. They are spending far too much and getting far too little in return. Plenty of authors and artists are telling the government that works can and will be made without such expenditure. The international free software movement has been proving this for many years now, having successfully produced a fully functional operating system in GNU/Linux that can be freely used, shared and improved upon by anyone who wants to do so; and more recently there have been people doing similar things in encyclopedias, textbooks, and the world of the arts (including music).

Previously, because the required equipment was large and expensive, normal readers and listeners did not have the means to easily make copies. Restrictive copyright did not negatively affect them. But now, because so many more people do have the ability to easily exercise this freedom, the burden imposed by copyright restrictions on our society has become unacceptably heavy. Even while these restrictions have become more burdensome, they have become less necessary — with the cost of publishing so much lower now, less incentive is required. Instead of acknowledging this, the government has been taking the side of those who, out of greed akin to selling us $640 toilet seats, see an opportunity to freeze what should be a contingent and evolving bargain into a permanent and natural right for themselves, expanding ownership powers under copyright law far beyond its current and historical borders.

In the U.S., the new administration continues to side against the public. Vice President Joe Biden recently spoke at a MPAA luncheon. He adopted the entertainment industry’s loaded “piracy” language, saying, “It’s pure theft.” Biden also assured the MPAA that President Obama would find the “right” copyright czar. His attitude is not surprising, given his past eagerness as a senator to sponsor and support RIAA-backed legislation. He was, after all, one of four U.S. senators invited to a champagne celebration of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) hosted by the MPAA, RIAA, and the Business Software Alliance. Obama himself has already appointed Tom Perrelli and Donald Verrilli, both former lead attorneys for the RIAA, to be associate and deputy associate attorney general.

If we are going to achieve sane copyright law, we have to avoid confusing this institutionalization of corporate greed with “art.” In fact, it seems most artists disagree with the RIAA. Sony artists reportedly earn a tiny $0.045 for each song sold on iTunes, and most of them will never receive even that much from Sony. As one example among many, singer Courtney Love answers the charge of piracy by saying: “What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist’s work without any intention of paying for it. I’m not talking about Napster-type software. I’m talking about major label recording contracts.”

The RIAA doesn’t stop at manipulating copyright law to gouge artists and the public. They also use their lawsuits as leverage to argue for control over any technology that could be used to distribute music. For example, they have pushed to require all wireless access points to be encrypted and closed, to restrict technologies like BitTorrent and other forms of peer-to-peer distribution, to impose bandwidth caps on home internet users, and to monitor traffic through service providers. Such efforts directly hurt free software. Because free software authors around the world work by collaboration, they rely on open distribution networks to move software, data, and conversation around. In particular, peer-to-peer technologies make this easier and cheaper for people with less bandwidth, and so are a powerful means of boosting grassroots free software distribution and development efforts.

The RIAA further attacks free software when they use these filesharing cases as ammunition to advocate DRM under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). It was the RIAA that attacked Princeton scientist Ed Felten for wanting to publish useful mathematical information, because this generally useful information might possibly be used to decrypt their specific DRM scheme. Sony saw no problem with secretly installing a rootkit on users’ computers, to facilitate spying on them and blocking certain activities. These efforts to turn computers against their users and to restrict technical information are on-face incompatible with free software. If we allow the RIAA to win outrageous damages in these lawsuits, then we are letting them manufacture evidence of losses due to illegal copying, which they will then use to demand from Congress more control over our technology.

Among both the government and the public, the RIAA lawsuits create a culture which frames these issues in terms that make it harder for free software to succeed, by creating a culture that fears sharing. This leads to confusion like the recent case of a schoolteacher who assumed that a student handing out GNU/Linux discs in class was breaking the law. One can hardly blame her for having this impression when the RIAA lawsuits and propaganda thoroughly permeate the news media, encouraging everyone to assume that sharing is wrong unless they are told otherwise.

The RIAA’s framing of the issue as “intellectual property” is another key way they foster this fear. They cite our opposition to this concept in their reply to our brief, and they are correct. The use of “intellectual property” language threatens to undermine the free software movement. The term lumps together disparate concepts like copyright, patents, and trademarks, which are legally distinct. The RIAA would like to lump them together because doing so increases the size of the gouge they can extract. By drawing an analogy with physical property, they erase the actual histories behind these specific areas of law and rationalize the obscene damages they are demanding. It skews discussion of the issues involved so that good solutions can’t be found, and if it is used in place of a clear discussion about copyright in the arena of music then people will accept it when discussing software as well.

The bottom line is that for art and software alike, sane copyright law should facilitate and promote sharing so that everyone can benefit from what is produced, and participate meaningfully in making it. For software, the easiest way to share is to put source code in the public domain, and not require any End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) or patent licenses. Anyone can then study and use the software, make changes to it, and redistribute changed versions to anyone they want. However, this leaves the door open for other people to use copyright law to make some changes to that software and strip away the freedom, redistributing their version without the freedoms that were originally there. Copyright law allows people to play middleman like this, intercepting works that are intended to be free and turning them into proprietary programs to control users.

To ensure that software written to be free remains free, the FSF uses a copyright license called the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL says that anyone is free to use, copy, change, and distribute modified versions of the software to which it is attached — as long as they pass on those same freedoms to whomever else they give the software. The GPL can do this because copyright law gives copyright holders the authority to outline those terms. Instead of using that authority to make copying illegal, the FSF uses that authority to make it illegal to make copying illegal.

Despite this, the FSF will continue working to reduce the power of copyright restrictions by fighting these lawsuits, filing briefs in specific cases, and collecting contributions to the RIAA Expert Witness Fund. We do not intend to shoot ourselves in the foot by supporting proposals to reduce the scope of copyright that would weaken the way the GPL protects freedom without simultaneously weakening the way companies like Microsoft and Apple use it as a weapon to take away freedom. But neither will we support the RIAA’s expansive approach to empowering copyright owners at the public’s expense on the grounds that it would make the GPL “stronger.” We will not accept losing the GPL as an effective shield unless as part of a plan that we could be confident would make software generally free. But neither will we confuse it with the end goal, which is a world where people are not called criminals when they want to see what the software on their computer is actually doing, or to share a copy with their neighbors, or to improve it and share their improvements.

Executives like Rolf Schmidt-Holtz of Sony Music Entertainment should get the message and back off. Although they claimed in December that they would stop filing lawsuits against individuals, the RIAA filed 62 more in the month of April alone. Citizens are tired of watching their governments squander their freedom to enrich this handful of corporations, and they are tired of being intimidated. We will continue our work to support this opposition to the War on Sharing, and to restore or replace copyright law for its intended purpose — progress in science and the arts, for everyone.

CC-BY-ND

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Last year we reported that the RIAA’s website had suffered an XSS attack and just a couple of days ago we revealed how the MPAA site was vulnerable to an XSS attack too, one which left it embarrassingly displaying torrents from The Pirate Bay.

Now it is the RIAA’s turn (again) to suffer the same fate. Vektor, who also discovered the MPAA site exploit, told TorrentFreak that he had managed to find a security hole in RIAA.com too. He demonstrated this by using an iframe – an HTML element which makes it possible to embed an HTML document inside another HTML document – TorrentFreak for example.

As with the MPAA site exploit, Vektor explains that his work on the RIAA site is a proof of concept and should be taken as a joke.

We’re sure the RIAA and MPAA coders will be laughing heartily as they try to plug these holes.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The apparent strategy:

1. Outlaw file sharing
2. Outlaw personal encryption and anonymization services
3. Set up a global, privately-run Internet surveillance program to spy on everybody all the time without a warrant — run by ISPs and paid for by the taxpayers
4. And finally, get the authority to block anyone from the Internet entirely, without the involvement of police, courts or any verifiable trail of evidence

We can not let this happen.

“It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.” – Bruce Schneier

One of the main reasons why the recording industry are currently succeeding in this hostile takeover of the Internet, is that most people simply don’t understand what file sharing is, or why it matters to them in the first place. Whenever civil liberties are sacrificed, it is always on the bonfire of ignorance. We need to educate the world – neighbors, parents, judges and lawmakers – as to why the Internet must remain free, neutral, and uncensored.

It sometimes helps to explain that a file sharing technology like Bittorrent is the digital society’s equivalent of the wheel. It allows fast and easy transportation of data between users and businesses alike. But like the wheel, file sharing needs a stable, flat surface to perform at its best. In this analogy, The Pirate Bay is nothing short of the largest, best maintained, and most stable network of such ‘digital roads’ in the world. And it’s free to use for anyone, at any time, for any purpose.

Naturally, as is always the case where people congregate in a free society, some of the people who drive their wheeled carts on this network of roads will be carrying things in their carts of questionable quality, purpose or origin. In any system or society that is based on freedom rather than censorship or distrust, there is no question that individual transgressions can take place. This is the most basic cost of liberty.

As a digital society in its teens, we have yet to realize the enormous potential of file sharing in culture, education, knowledge sharing, and business. But already, we are seeing massive opposition against it from the likes of IFPI, the RIAA and the MPAA. This opposition, of course, stems from some of the aforementioned wheeled carts transporting ‘questionable goods’, in the form of copyrighted material.

The ensuing battle has been disguised as a legal matter concerning rights holders and ‘pirates’, but that is only the tip of the iceberg. It is true that the recording industry wants to stop criminals, but they are attempting to prohibit the wheel and all building of roads to pull it off. These lawyers are prepared to sacrifice our liberties, our privacy and our digital freedom in order to reach their goal. It is a grossly disproportionate and misdirected attack, and it has already begun: Once the verdict of the Spectrial was in, the Swedish anti-piracy office immediately began issuing legal threats against other file sharing networks. They are bulldozing every street and burning every car to prevent any possible (mis)use of the wheel. And worse yet – we are letting it happen.

The case of The Pirate Bay was not a case of artists vs. freeloaders, or even the recording industry vs. pirates. There were no artists on the accusing side, nor were there any pirates on the defending side. It was, and is, a case of misguided frustration by industry executives and lawyers, directed not against the actual violators of copyright law, but against the most outspoken proponents and enablers of a fundmental digital technology. A technology that allows fast and easy transportation af data – all data – between users and businesses alike.

We must never blame the network for the actions of individuals. Both rights holders and lawmakers must respect the fundamental principle of personal, individual responsibility. Let each peer be responsible for his own actions, just as every driver is liable for his own car.

The Pirate Bay is not illegal. File sharing is not illegal. Using file sharing for illegal purposes is illegal. The difference may be subtle to a layman, but in legal terms, the distinction is clear as day. The fact that the judges in the Pirate Bay case failed to recognize this, is a judicial travesty bordering on flat out corruption.

It cannot be stressed enough: this is not a question of copyright, of music, or of piracy. This is a question of a private organization now aiming to subvert several of the most important digital inventions since the World Wide Web, and our judges and politicians turning a blind eye in a staggering display of ignorance and corruption. This fight is about much more than The Pirate Bay. When our liberties are taken from us, we must rise, united in one voice, and fight for them.

It is a fight for basic digital liberties. It is a fight for our right to privacy. It is a fight for net neutrality. There is no getting around it. This is the fight of our generation, and it is too important to lose.

This is a guest post by Jens Roland. Jens is a computer scientist by training, but a technology forecaster by trade. He has worked at international think tanks as a consultant and researcher in emerging technologies and has written more than 300 articles and a book on the subject.

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In addition, the artists are unhappy with the fact that the labels, represented by lobby groups such as the RIAA and IFPI, are pushing for anti-piracy legislation without consulting the artists they claim to represent. Fans are unnecessarily portrayed as criminals according to some.

Now, in the case of Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum versus the RIAA, Radiohead has indicated that they will testify against the RIAA. Tenenbaum’s troubles started in 2003 when he rejected an offer to settle with the RIAA for $500. After a few more settlement attempts and legal quibbles, the case eventually went to court.

In court Joel is assisted by ‘hippy head‘ Professor Charles Nesson, and his law students. TorrentFreak contacted Tenenbaum’s legal team, who confirmed that they indeed spoke to Radiohead. “We met with Radiohead’s manager two weeks ago here at Harvard Law School. Professor Nesson walked away with the impression that their manager agreed to do so,” we were told.

Despite the criticism of Professor Charles Nesson’s work ethics and handling on the case thus far, it would be good to see well respected musicians such as Radiohead testify in favor of an accused file-sharer. Most of the time we don’t hear from the artists directly, only from their representatives, so their views are very welcome.

Recently, the effects of ‘illegal’ file-sharing on music sales were discussed during the Pirate Bay trial. Here, Professor and media researcher Roger Wallis told the court that his research has shown that there is no relationship between the decline of album sales and file-sharing. After his testimony, Wallis’ wife was overwhelmed with flowers as the public warmed to her husband and the opinion he expressed in court.

We can’t rule out the possibility that Radiohead might be after some floral tributes of its own, but even more than that they’d love to put one in the eye of the money obsessed record labels.

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This week the press has been buzzing with the ‘news’ that the music and movie industries will be working with ISPs to send out infringement notices to alleged copyright infringers. Of course, this has been going on for years already but the indications are that the tracking of file-sharers will intensify and with this will come an increase in warnings.

These warnings are designed to frighten people away from file-sharing networks but the million dollar question is: Will these scare-mails work? Let’s find out.

How would you respond to an RIAA/MPAA copyright infringement warning?

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It all started with rumors about two US ISPs, Comcast and AT&T, who were said to be doing a three-strikes deal with the RIAA. It soon became known that this rumor was completely fabricated, but not before hundreds of other news oulets reproduced the story. At the end of the week it turned out that there was no news at all.

Yes, the RIAA, MPAA and other outfits do plan to send copyright infringement warnings to ISPs, but they’ve been doing so for at least half a decade. Every other month these Hollywood lobbyists pitch their anti-piracy efforts to the public, and that’s exactly what they are paid for. This doesn’t mean, however, that something is about to change.

The anti-piracy outfits are happy with all the free publicity of course, that is exactly what they are after. Their purpose is to scare people. In this post we hope to clear up some of the misunderstandings, as we show that the scary stories published this week have no substance at all.

Copyright infringement warnings?

For years, content owners such as record labels or movie studios have been sending copyright infringement notices to ISPs, who are legally obliged to forward these to their customers. Some ISPs simply ignore them, while others faithfully forward the emails to the customer account associated with the infringing IP-address. Many ISPs don’t keep records of these events.

So, is my ISP spying on me?

No. This is a common misunderstanding. ISPs don’t look into your specific downloading behavior, they never have and there is no indication that this will change anytime in the near future. All the ‘evidence’ comes from organizations that work for the copyright holders.

What do they know about me?

If you receive a warning, all copyright holders know about you at this stage is your IP-address and what files were (partially) shared via your account, or more accurately – the bill payer’s account. The MPAA, RIAA and others don’t know your name and they never will unless they get a court order forcing your ISP to hand over the information. In the bigger picture, this is very rare.

How did they track me down?

The copyright holders hire companies such as BayTSP and DtecNet to track down people who share certain titles on BitTorrent and other file-sharing networks. They join the swarm and request files from others. When someone shares a piece of the file with them they log the IP-address, look up the ISP and send out a copyright infringement notice automatically. Unlike the file-sharers, these companies are authorized to download these files, so they are not infringing copyright themselves.

Will I get sued if I receive a warning through my ISP?

No. These copyright infringement warnings are not related to any legal action. Copyright holders do go after people who share their work on file-sharing networks, but this has nothing to do with the warnings they send out via ISPs.

Will they take my Internet away?

No. Although there is a lot of talk about “three strikes” policies, no ISP has agreed (or was forced) to disconnect users after they receive their third warning. In New Zealand they came close to implementing a law that would require ISPs to do this, but this proposal was pulled.

In France they are also considering three strikes legislation, but this has not passed into action yet. In Ireland the largest ISP Eircom said it would disconnect repeated infringers only if they receive a court order.

It is worth mentioning though that ISPs may cut off people whenever they think it’s necessary. Cox does this in the US for example, without an agreement with the MPAA or RIAA. ISPs have terms and conditions and most forbid copyright infringement, but really this is just to cover their own backs under the law.

Do I have to be worried?

Receiving a regular infringement notice is nothing to be worried about. However, if you download copyrighted files without authorization from the copyright holder you are breaking the law in some countries. If you receive a warning without having shared anything yourself (which happens quite often) then there’s nothing to worry about.

Can I protect (hide) myself?

If you don’t want to be spied on when using BitTorrent the best option is to hide your IP-address. You can do so by subscribing to a VPN service or by using software such as TorrentPrivacy. Blocklist software such as PeerGuardian is often recommended, but it is also highly ineffective as the lists are never fully up-to date or accurate.

What’s the point in all this?

The MPAA and RIAA don’t want their products on file-sharing networks and they use these warning emails to deter people from sharing these files with others. Since it’s much cheaper (and effective) than suing people, this is now their strategy of choice. Using news outlets to spread their doom and gloom scenarios is just part of their operation.

In the future the amount of warnings they send out to alleged infringers will increase and the studios and ISPs will work together to keep the associated operating costs down, if that’s not what they’ve already been doing in their recent meetings. It’s just the old model, scaled up with a rumor or two on top.

Let’s move on already.

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Today’s coverage at both P2Pnet and Ray Beckerman’s blog, however, caught our eye. In what seems to be a classic David versus Goliath story, Shahanda Moursy from North Carolina has demanded a trial against three major record labels and the RIAA.

Also among the defendants is Mediasentry, the company that harvests IP-addresses of alleged copyright infringers. Previously, Mediasentry’s investigation tactics were deemed illegal in several states because it operated without the appropriate and required paperwork. This is one of the many offenses being used in the present claim.

Moursy is suing the RIAA and others for several offenses, but what really caught our eye is the description of the RIAA’s practices. According to the complaint the RIAA and record labels:

…[through] concerted efforts and cartels, control or attempt to control the channels of creation, distribution, and sale of musical works throughout the United States and the world. They are not artists, songwriters, or musicians. They did not write or record the songs. For a number of years, a group of large, multinational, multi-billion dollar record companies, including these [record labels], have been abusing the federal court judicial system for the purpose of waging a public relations and public threat campaign targeting digital file sharing activities.

To us, this indeed seems to be a fairly accurate description, but it’s only the start. As we’ve outlined before, the RIAA tends to target the weak, and aim for an early settlement of a few thousand dollars.

As part of this campaign of their sham litigation program, the [record labels] enhance the intimidation factor by actually filing suit in a number of instances with no prior warning. These suits are designed to attract media attention, and often do, as stories emerge of [record labels'] suits against the elderly, disabled, technologically clueless, and other vulnerable victims. Many of these victims have no idea how to operate a computer, let alone how to install and use peer-to-peer networking software to exchange music they would not likely be listening to anyway. But actual innocence is rarely a consideration to the [record labels].

And on top of that..

[The record labels’] litigation campaign, its preceding demands, and illegal investigations, are part of a concerted pattern of sham litigation. The [record labels'] true purpose is not to obtain the relief claimed in its sham litigation, but to intimidate, harass, and oppress the defendant targets and other users of computer networks.

To many, this will all sound very familiar and it’s good to see Mrs. Moursy’s legal representatives describing the tactics of these outfits so vividly. Over the years, tens of thousands have been harassed and threatened because they allegedly downloaded music illegally, exclusively based on shoddy evidence. Justice is calling.

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Dave Satz wrote in to inform us that one of his friends was served with a DMCA takedown notice a few weeks ago. His friend, John Aprigliano, had allegedly downloaded a CAM release of “Cadillac Records”, without ever having heard of the movie. Although these takedown notices are just a formality and intended to scare the recipient, John decided to contact his ISP and ask for clarification.

After four calls to Comcast support the truth came out. The infringement notice was forwarded to the wrong person because the MAC-address of John’s old modem was still linked to his account. The Comcast techs eventually corrected the mistake, but this case yet again shows how inaccurate takedown notices can be.

Of course, this is just an exception, without any serious consequences. But what if John had lived in Ireland or New Zealand? He could have lost his Internet connection because of a mistake like this. Not to mention that if Comcast doesn’t screw up, the companies that collect the so called evidence might – it wouldn’t be the first time.

The RIAA is currently trying to get ISPs all across the world, including Comcast, on board for their “three-strikes” or “graduated response” scheme. Earlier this week ZDNet reported that AT&T and Comcast are seriously considering teaming up with the RIAA later this year to hunt down illegal filesharers. Let’s hope Comcast has fixed its administration by then.

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One of the cases vying to be the first to go all the way for a standing decision, is the case involving Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum. After initially offering to settle for $500, and having it rejected back in 2003, he decided to fight. His case has proved quite a headache for the RIAA by all accounts. Starting with a counterclaim asserting abuse of federal power, and that the damages demanded were unconstitutional, it has eventually gone to court after several settlement attempts. In court Joel is assisted by Professor Charles Nesson, and his law students.

In the Thomas case, the lawyer involved wasn’t particularly enthusiastic nor experienced in this area, and it showed. The same can’t be said of Prof. Nesson, who is a Harvard law professor as well as Founder and Co-Director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. In what might be considered a coup, he convinced the judge to allow the trial to be webcast on the Internet. This will allow others to see just how the lawyers act in a case. Yet, in the last few hours, it has been revealed that the RIAA has appealed the motion, clearly upset that it might harm their public image further.

It’s hard to see how it can though, when the RIAA makes statements on the case that do nothing to generate goodwill. RIAA’s Cara Duckworth said in a statement, “While this might be an interesting academic exercise for the professor and his class, there’s been real world consequences for those who create music.” Clearly little things like following the law are second place to their revenue steam, and how DARE the defense bother to fight the case against them. In the meantime, we’re looking forward to the webcast.

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One of those insiders, working at Sony, was kind enough to ’share’ the eCard with us, writing:

“I’m one of those ‘lucky’ people that the RIAA send something other than cease & desist or lawsuit emails to. This year, they sent me a lovely eCard.”

What a beauty it is, how kind of them.

“May the joyful sound of music always be a part of your holidays.” Indeed. Too bad we are still required to pay copyright fees if we want to sing Christmas carols.

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The American auto industry has appeared similarly insular. Year after year it has churned out large and poorly performing vehicles, aspiring only to the style de-jour. Heavy cars that are cheaply constructed in many cases, and with poor performance in comparison to similar vehicles from foreign car companies. If all else failed, there was the inevitable appeal to ego, pointing out that American cars and trucks are bigger than the competition, with an attitude of ‘bigger is better’. However, their refusal to adopt modern technology has created vehicles that handle poorly, and are more prone to breakdowns. US Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY 5th) understands this well, he’s had problems with his Caddy, while his wife’s non-US car has had better service.

Both industries have been before the US congress, asking for help because of their poor financial status. The questions people are asking now are: Who is next to beg for a billion dollar bailout? Ackerman also acknowledged this, saying “Somebody heard that we’re giving out free money in Washington. They’re showing up from all over the place.” What industry has ruined itself by excessive greed and refusal to adopt new technologies? Could it be Hollywood, or perhaps the music labels?

The excesses of the movie industry are well known. Brad Pitt and others regularly command eight-figure fees, which quickly add up. There seems to be an increasing reliance on special effects and big names to carry films, rather than writing and acting talent. While this might increase the short-term draw at the box office, it is more than countered by a loss in repeated watchability, which cuts into later profits. A big name in a bad film is still going to be a bad film (BattleField Earth or Gigli), while an unknown in a good film, will be a good film, if the acting and production is up to it.

Of course, bad decision making is only part of the problem. Resistance to changing technology is another. The film industry famously resisted the VCR, claiming it would devastate their industry. The case went all the way to the US Supreme Court, where they narrowly affirmed the legality of home recording. Today, despite their resistance, the majority of income from a film is from pre-recorded content which is played on similar machines.

The music industry has also resisted technology, opposing innovations such as player-pianos, through commercial radio and file-sharing technology. Between discs infested with DRM, through stage-managed raids with convenient media coverage, to suing and threatening to sue ten-of-thousands of their best customers, they’ve shown not only their dislike of technology, but also bad decision-making.

Meanwhile, both the music and movie industry have been pleading poverty and blaming piracy. The infamous LEK study where piracy was blamed for everything was nothing more than a subtle attempt to quantify a theoretical loss. With no science or methodology behind it, it’s hard to take it seriously, but some congressional members have done just that. Now, as well as trying to push draconian anti-consumer legislation through congress, it could work to their advantage if they were to go cap-in-hand to politicians and say “we’re really hurting, and we could really do with some financial help.”

But will this happen? Just a year or two ago, some said that it seemed unlikely that the financial industry would take this path, so the film and music industries following this same road should come as no surprise. The trail has been blazed by others, and now they may find themselves following the advice of Dire Straits.

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This means that millions of people will receive warning emails from their Internet service provider, based on ‘evidence‘ gathered by a third party with a vested interest in the outcome. This will also mean, however, that thousands of individuals will receive emails in error, as the evidence gathering techniques are not as solid as the anti-piracy outfits say. There have been a lot of false accusations already, and this was recently confirmed in mainstream media by the BBC show Watchdog.

The move from individual lawsuits to controlling piracy at the ISP level seems to be the new trend this year. Many countries have looked into the possibility of disconnecting file-sharers from the Internet, often gently pushed by anti-piracy lobbyists. France was the first to present their “three-strikes” law earlier this year, which would allow anti-piracy outfits to police the Internet. The IFPI now plans to implement this worldwide, with or without legislation.

It wont stop there though, if the RIAA gets its way ISPs will also have to pro-actively check for copyrighted content on their network. In their list of suggestions for the controversial ACTA proposal, the RIAA wants ISPs to spy on the files that are transferred by their customers, and check them against a reference database of “copyrighted files”.

ISPs worldwide are not looking forward to policing their networks, but they might find themselves with no other option. Adding further pressure, the RIAA wants ISPs to be held liable for the copyright infringement that takes place on their network, as their proposal suggests “…in the absence of proof to the contrary, an Internet service provider shall be considered as knowing that the content it stores is infringing or illegal, and thus subject to liability for copyright infringement…”

So, while dropping the mass-lawsuits might be considered to be a step forward by some, the change in tactics might very well result in a virtual police state where consumers (and ISPs) are guilty until proven innocent. The RIAA has lost some major battles in court, but if they gain control over ISPs, the future might be even darker than the past.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.