While Hotfile has settled cases with copyright holders in the past, they are determined to fight this pivotal lawsuit to the end.

And not only that. A court document obtained by TorrentFreak reveals that Hotfile also plans to countersue one of the Hollywood studios.

Hotfile last week opposed a motion from the studios and the MPAA to limit the information (so called privilege logs) they have to produce in their ongoing case. As with a related filing we reported on yesterday, the reason to refuse access is that the movie studios claim their anti-piracy strategies are trade secrets.

Hotfile, however, wants the MPAA members to provide standard privilege logs as required by law, and for a good reason. Hidden in a footnote of the court papers Hotfile explains that it may use the information to file a lawsuit against Warner Bros.

“Being able to determine which withheld documents are related to Plaintiffs’ cooperative antipiracy efforts to remove material from Hotfile is also important for a counterclaim Hotfile intends to bring against at least one of the Plaintiffs—Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. (“Warner”).”

The file-hosting service explains that they plan to sue Warner Bros. for abusing their anti-piracy tool. Via the tool copyright holders can remove infringing content from Hotfile themselves, but the Hollywood studio allegedly did more than that.

“Hotfile has evidence that Warner used an antipiracy tool provided by Hotfile at Warner’s request to improperly remove material for which Warner did not own a copyright, and that Warner removed some material without ever verifying the contents of what it was deleting. Hotfile is entitled to full information as to any claims of ‘privilege’ with respect to evidence withheld related to that claim.”

Hotfile’s lawyers don’t provide any further specifics on the case but one possibility could be that the Warner Bros. account was used to remove files from other movie studios. More details will likely become available when Hotfile submits an official complaint to the court.

The ongoing legal battle between Hotfile and Hollywood is important for many similar services operating in the United States. Two weeks ago the file-hosting service scored its first win when the judge ruled that Hotfile is not liable for primary copyright infringement, but the case is far from over.

There is little doubt that the planned countersuit against Warner Bros. will add even more fuel to the fire.

Source: Hotfile to Sue Warner Bros. For Abusing Its Anti-Piracy Tool

Quantifying its ‘losses’ in court, the four labels claimed illegal downloading costs the Irish music industry 13.8 million Euros every year, and since Eircom has 40 per cent of the ISP market, it must be held responsible for causing the industry losses of between 4 and 5 million Euros. Further details about the case are available in our previous report.

The case, which was due to run for 4 weeks, was cut short this evening after just eight days. According to an RTE report it has ended after a fairly shocking and unexpected development. The ‘Big Four’, headed by the IFPI, have reached an “amicable” settlement with Eircom.

In an agreement believed to be a world first, EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner will start tracking the IP addresses of alleged infringers and supply the details to the ISP. Eircom has agreed that it will ultimately disconnect infringers from the Internet.

Essentially, Eircom has agreed to implement a “3 Strikes” regime against its own customers. On the first allegation the customer will get a warning. On the second allegation they will be informed that if they do not stop their activities, disconnection will follow. On the third, it’s Internet blackout time.

The Chairman of EMI said he now expects other ISPs to follow suit – serious pressure will be brought down on them immediately.

Source: ISP Capitulates to IFPI, Agrees to Disconnect Pirates

EMI offered a deadline – either the IFPI reduced the costs associated with membership by 31st March 2008 – or EMI would leave. Now, after a few months of negotiations, it seems some sort of deal has been struck enabling EMI to stay as a member.

An IFPI spokesman said the organisation had been able to a agree a “sensible, appropriate and reasonable reduction in our budget.”

It won’t be just EMI that gets reduced rates either. The other major members – Universal, Sony and Warner will all benefit, says Jean-Francois Cecillon, president of EMI International:

“We undertook to work with our colleagues in the other major labels and with (IFPI boss) John Kennedy on a cost saving plan for the IFPI. Together we have been able to find solutions which we believe are achievable whilst maintaining what the IFPI does best in representing our industry.”

Separately, the IFPI just announced it has successfully shutdown a Direct Connect hub in Chile, specializing in metal. If they feel that this type of action is the most effective way of spending EMI’s money, no surprise they wanted to leave.

Source: EMI Stays With IFPI On Condition it Pays Less to Chase Pirates

When EMI, Universal Music and Warner music reached settlement agreements with the likes of Napster, KaZaA and Bolt, they collected hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation – money that was supposed to go to artists whose rights had been allegedly infringed upon when the networks were operating with unlicensed music.

Now, according to an article, the managers of some major artists are getting very impatient, as it appears the very people who were supposed to be compensated – the artists – haven’t received anything from the massive settlements. They say the cash – estimated to be as much as $400m – hasn’t filtered through to their clients and understandably they’re getting very impatient.

Lawyer John Branca, who has represented the likes of The Rolling Stones and Korn, said: “Artist managers and lawyers have been wondering for months when their artists will see money from the copyright settlements and how it will be accounted for.”

Indicating the levels of impatience with the big labels holding the money he added: “Some of them are even talking about filing lawsuits if they don’t get paid soon.”

Of course, EMI, Universal and Warner have a different take on the delay, with sources suggesting that it’s down to the difficulties in deciding who gets what money, based on the levels of copyright infringement for each individual group or artist.

A recording industry on the back foot having spent most of its time fighting the digital revolution rather than becoming part of it, is clearly trying to hang on to every penny, even when it comes to compensating the artists who they claim they were defending by taking legal action in the first place.

Irving Azoff, who manages Christina Aguilera, The Eagles, Van Halen, REO Speedwagon and Seal (amongst others) says it’s hard for artists to get what they deserve from the labels: “They will play hide and seek, but eventually will be forced to pay something,” he said. “The record companies have even tried to credit unrecouped accounts. It’s never easy for an artist to get paid their fair share.”

Typically, the labels see it a different way. An EMI spokeperson said that it was “sharing proceeds from the Napster and Kazaa settlements with artists and writers whose work was infringed upon” while Warner’s said the label is “sharing the Napster settlement with its recording artists and songwriters, and at this stage nearly all settlement monies have been disbursed.”

The Universal spokesman spoke only of the label’s ‘policy’ of sharing “its portion of various settlements with its artists, regardless of whether their contracts require it” with no mention of whether it had actually done this or not.

But typically, when money is involved, things start to get murky. The same sources who suggested the reasons for the delay in making payments are also suggesting that there might not be much money to even give to the artists.

It’s being claimed that after legal bills were subtracted from the hundreds of millions in settlements, there wasn’t much left over to hand out.

Source: RIAA Keeps Settlement Money, Artists May Sue

The growth is a result of BitTorrent’s deals with companies like Warner, Chinese TV and Movie companies, and other movie companies. BitTorrent is also planning to open their very own video store later this year.

The serverpark is located at the Main 365 datacenter in San Francisco, BitTorrent’s hometown. Ashwin Navin, president and co-founder of BitTorrent states:

“BitTorrent is not a company that limits itself by convention. With our aggressive growth plans we need a data center that can grow with us and deliver reliable power, cooling and connectivity. 365 Main provides these features within a stone’s throw away from our engineering team in San Francisco,”.

And I always thought BitTorrent was supposed to save you bandwidth…

Source: BitTorrent Inc expands server park

The great thing about BitTorrent is that it has really important legitimate uses – ones that do not infringe copyright. If you want to distribute copies of a very large file – a new release of an operating system, say – BitTorrent is a terrific way to do it. But to date it has probably been employed mainly to distribute movies – illicitly. My guess, for example, is that it accounts for the high availability of episodes of Lost which have yet to be broadcast in the UK.

Trust Hollywood, as one Silicon Valley wag put it, ‘to “embrace” peer-to-peer distribution and all the economies and efficiencies that go along with it and then ruin it by using it to peddle an inferior and overpriced product’. Nothing changes.

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Source: Nothing Changes

BitTorrent spokeswoman Lily Lin confirmed to TorrentFreak

Our MPAA arrangement is strictly about taking down links to infringing content from our search engine, nothing more, nothing less.

As we said, sites like Mininova, Torrentz.com, Torrentportal and Torrentspy have the exact same policy.

Today however, BitTorrent.org changed the design of the frontpage, listing free (and legal) TV-Shows and Game Trials.

The recent deal with Warner is also advertised. Hollywood blockbusters (and DRM?), coming soon on BitTorrent.

But, the pirates can still find their favorite pirated movies, since most of the torrents indexed by BitTorrent.com are still copyrighted. Just try a search for terms like “dvdrip“, and “dvdscr” you will see that there’s a lot of pirated content available. Legal on the outside, pirate heaven on the inside.

Source: BitTorrent.org’s Legal Mask