Apple defended this policy and told developers that their apps were not allowed “because this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third-party rights.”

This BitTorrent aversion is also one of the main reasons why popular BitTorrent clients such as uTorrent, Vuze and Transmission don’t have an Apple-approved presence on the iPhone and iPad.

This week the BitTorrent client “Blue Downloader” was approved by Apple and added to the App store. The application allows users to control and add torrent downloads through a built-in browser. The torrents can then be directly downloaded to the device.

The application handles torrent downloads without any problems, but there is one rather big restriction. The developer has decided to only allow downloads from a few trusted sources.

Trying to add files from The Pirate Bay or KickassTorrents wont work, but white-listed sites such as Archive.org, Linuxtracker and Bitlove are freely accessible.

Talking to TorrentFreak, Blue Downloader developer Harrison Tyler says that he implemented these restrictions to improve his odds of getting the app approved by Apple.

“Apple is very restrictive about torrent downloading, so I thought I would take the same precautions. If Apple were to see a completely unrestricted torrent downloader, they would not take it as well as what I have now,” Tyler tells us.

“I am not for restrictions normally, but as I am bending the accessibility of the app based on Apple’s will,” he adds.

This strategy appears to have worked, for now, as the torrent client is still available in the App store. There is a chance that it may not be around for long though. Blue Downloader carefully avoided the B-word and Apple may still ban the app if they spot the connection.

The self-censoring developer believes that BitTorrent is unfairly stigmatized. Pirated files can be found all over the Internet, and Apple has no restrictions for apps that download from direct sources.

“There is an unfortunate stigma associated with torrent downloading. Even though there is almost an equal amount of illegal files on the Internet to regularly download, people still crack down on the evils of BitTorrent,” Tyler says.

For those interested in giving the rather limited Blue Downloader a try, it’s available in the App Store for $2.99.

Update: Censorship no more? The developer is now allowing access to Google as well. This provides access to all torrent sites on the Internet.

Update: And the Google option is gone again…

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

With a huge and fanatical customer base the launch of a new iPhone always ticks every box and the launch of the 5s model in September was no different. With people reportedly selling their places in the lines outside US and UK stores for hundreds of dollars and pounds, the atmosphere was as frenzied as Apple had hoped for.

Inevitably stocks were diminished as Apple failed to keep up with supply, of iPhone 5s in particular.

“One week later and there’s still a line about the length of a football field outside the GSP Apple Store,” came the word on Twitter September 28.

“They’re idiots,” came the response. “We have had tons of them in inventory at VZW [Verizon Wireless]”

Realizing that stock may well be available if people looked in the right place, a solution to the problem was created by developer Mordy Tikotzky. His web-based iPhone-Check tool scanned Apple’s retail store site and allowed users to enter their ZIP code, specify a color and a carrier, and then be presented with a list of available phones at Apple stores in the area.

The site was a real hit with both potential Apple customers and the press, and was covered in articles on CNET, Gizmodo [image credit], LA Times, Time, CNN, Forbes and Huffington Post to name just a few. Just days ago Tikotzky added iPad Air support but sadly the fun is now over.

“I’ve decided to turn off the site. I’m not doing this because I want to, but rather because I received a DMCA takedown notice…from Apple,” Tikotzky just announced.

The notice, sent by the Kilpatrick Townsend and Stockton law firm, invites responses to an email address that begins APPLE_COPYRIGHT.

“I have a good faith belief that the website identified by URL below is unlawful because, among other things, the page scrapes and collects data from apple.com in violation of the apple.com Internet Service Terms of Use,” the notice reads.

“You may not use any ‘deep-link’, ‘page-scrape’, ‘robot’, ‘spider’ or other automatic device, program, algorithm or methodology, or any similar or equivalent manual process, to access, acquire, copy or monitor any portion of the Site or any Content, or in any way reproduce or circumvent the navigational structure or presentation of the Site or any Content, to obtain or attempt to obtain any materials, documents or information through any means not purposely made available through the Site. Apple reserves the right to bar any such activity.”

Although Tikotzky frames the cease and desist as a DMCA notice, the DMCA isn’t specifically cited. Copyright is mentioned several times though, including that the information scraped/obtained from Apple’s site had important copyright-related information removed.

“I have a good faith belief that the removal of copyright management information from the material listed above is not authorized by law,” the notice adds.

Copyright Management Information (CMI) includes things such as the title of the work, its copyright notice, plus items that identify the author and terms and conditions for use of the work. Under the DMCA it is unlawful to remove CMI from a work, but whether stock information amounts to a ‘work’ is arguable.

Tikotzky admits that he scraped Apple’s website to get the information for his tool, but whether that constitutes an infringement or a simple terms of use violation is clearly something he doesn’t have the patience to find out.

“I’m not really interested in picking a fight with Apple so….. I guess it time to just say good bye,” Tikotzky concludes.

While it seems likely that the site could have generated sales for Apple, a commenter on Gizmodo who claims to be a former company employee explained that they company likes to do it their way.

“Apple wants people to come into the store and ask and seek out. Their entire goal is to get you to repeatedly come to the store. Why? Because if you’re in the store you’re more likely to buy something. If you’re in a line outside the store, you’re creating free advertising for Apple,” he said.

“In either case, Apple is -very- strict about controlling the flow of information about itself, wherever possible. I used to work for Apple, I know full well that they don’t like this sort of thing.”

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

To counter this image a group of Ukrainian copyright holders has started the “Clear Sky” initiative. The coalition wants to emphasize that Ukraine is not the only country that has to take responsibility for piracy and says that U.S. companies must also do their part.

This week the group pointed the finger at Apple and Google, who are reportedly refusing to remove ‘infringing’ apps from their respective stores.

The copyright holders say that apps such as LazyEXua, EX.ua Cinema, Music.ex.ua, EX Plus, and Kartina TV give users access to a wide variety of copyrighted videos and music, without compensating the owners.

Music.ex.ua, for example, is available for free in the App Store. It lists millions of songs on the Ukrainian file-hosting site Ex.ua, which iOS users all over the world can stream for free.

In an attempt to get several infringing apps removed, the online video portal Divan TV recently complained to both Apple and Google. Divan TV owns distribution rights to a wide variety of titles which makes them a rightsholder much like the original creator, but reportedly both Apple and Google were reluctant to take action.

“We’ve got an automated answer that only rightholders, not services, are entitled to approach them,” Divan TV’s Katerina Diachenko said commenting on the issue.

Apple’s press center in Russia and Google Ukraine both noted that they have policies in place to deal with copyright infringement but refused to comment on individual cases. Why Divan TV was not seen as a rightsholder remains a mystery for now.

TorrentFreak searched for the apps Divan complained about and it appears that some have since been removed. However, the Clear Sky coalition notes that many other ‘pirate’ apps remain available.

Pavel Mykolyuk, director of the law firm Vindex and a key member of the Clear Sky coalition, finds it unacceptable that two of the biggest technology brands are refusing to take action.

“It is obvious that certain Apple and Android mobile apps available for download are publishing pirated content. While Apple and Google take a strong stance on content considered inappropriate such as porn, both brands are unwilling to expand their remit to include content that breaches copyrights,” Mykolyuk informs TorrentFreak.

In part, Mykolyuk believes it’s because Ukrainian rightsholders are taken less seriously than their counterparts in the United States.

“Here in Ukraine, we are being made the scapegoat for online piracy and while we recognize and are acting on the problem within our country, we are increasingly fighting policy shortsightedness of Google and Apple regarding piracy enabling within their own marketplaces,” Mykolyuk adds.

By addressing these issues in public the alliance hopes to show that piracy is not just a Ukrainian problem, and that all countries have to take their responsibilities. Thus far, however, many of the apps in question remain available.

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

In September last year there appeared to be a light at the end of the tunnel when software slipped through, but just days later the dream was over when Apple said the apps had been approved “by mistake“.

The reasons Apple can exercise this kind of control are wrapped up in two issues. First, their absolute control over the content of the App Store and second, the restrictive DRM present in every single iDevice be it an iPod, iPhone or iPad.

Thankfully there is a way around this with a technique called jailbreaking, an act which through software removes Apple’s control and allows third party software to run unhindered. Just this week the geniuses of the Evad3rs dev team released their latest jailbreak for iOS6 and what better way to celebrate the freedom it provides than installing a new torrent client?

The software, which is based on the open source Transmission, is called iTransmission 3. It is the much needed upgrade to iTransmission 2, a tool from Beecher Adams that received its latest release in the middle of 2012.

Installation

First your device needs to be upgraded to iOS6 or iOS6.1 and the jailbreak installed. Version 1.1 of the jailbreak is out now implementing a couple of fixes.

With the jailbreak comes Cydia, the alternative to Apple’s app store. Simply click the icon on your iDevice and it will load. Click the ‘Search’ button, type in ‘iTransmission 3′ when prompted and click ‘install’ followed by ‘Confirm’. The software will download, install, and place a launch icon on your device – we’re using an iPhone for our demo.

Quick Setup

Having a quick look under the hood before diving into a torrent never hurts, so clicking the little ‘cog’ icon on the bottom right of the interface gets us into iTransmission 3′s settings page.

Options include turning on and configuring the client’s web interface and allowing iTransmission 3 to use WiFi and/or cellular communications, a useful feature for keeping those data bills down.

The ‘dial’ icon on iTransmission 3′s main screen calls up settings for speed. These include limiting the number of connections overall and connections per torrent. Setting any of these too high could cause your iPhone or iPad to become unstable, so a little trial and error is required to get the optimum setting.

In most cases on an established torrent the settings shown below should do the trick. So as not to saturate your download or upload bandwidth there are features to restrict either, should you so require.

Adding a torrent to download

Users have two options to add a torrent. The first (‘web’) launches a web browser which is far from ideal (no pinch/zoom) but functions adequately. We browsed to ThePirateBay.se, and grabbed a release with just a few seeds so the site gave us a .torrent file instead of the default magnet link. The torrent added the download to iTransmission 3′s queue immediately.

The second option, adding a torrent via a magnet link, was just as painless. Magnets can be added directly by clicking on them from the web browser. If you have the magnet link in your iPhone’s clipboard or can remember it, that can be entered into the ‘magnet’ input box directly.

Once a torrent or magnet link is added simply navigate back to iTransmission 3′s main page and a full status report for active transfers is displayed. Highlighting any torrent reveals new controls which allow the user to stop, pause, resume or delete a transfer.

Other details available include the current download and upload speeds, the hash of the torrent and which client created it, where a torrent was downloaded from and whether it’s private or not, plus details of the downloaded files and where they will be stored in your iDevice.

Overall, iTransmission 3 is a decent client that is simple to use and functions as advertised. The app works on iPad but does not yet take advantage of the larger display, something that should be addressed in a future update.

Available from the the repo at ModMyi, iTransmission 3 is completely free and currently only for iOS6.x.

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

This spring the company gave its blessing to a remote control app for the Transmission BitTorrent client, and this surprise approval was followed by another for a similar uTorrent app last week.

This was a fairly remarkable move since Apple previously told developers that their apps were not allowed because “this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third-party rights.”

However, as it turns out the excitement was only temporary.

Craig Donnelly, developer of the Conttrol app for uTorrent, informs TorrentFreak that he received a phone call from Apple’s headquarters yesterday.

“Got a call there a little earlier from California,” Craig says. “It seems Apple are not ok with apps that have anything to do with BitTorrent.”

“The nice girl on the other end of phone said that Conttrol had been approved by mistake and Apple were sorry for the inconvenience but apps of this nature are not allowed in the store,” he adds.

So that’s it. BitTorrent apps are still banned by Apple, indefinitely.

While we haven’t heard from the Transmission RPC developer, we assume that he got a similar call.

Apple’s mistake is not just a blow to the developers who worked for weeks on their apps, but also to the users who spent hard cash to buy them. Some Transmission RPC users bought the app months ago and will soon have it wiped from their iOS devices.

Craig has now decided to sell his app at a discount for as long as it lasts, but that’s still a risky investment with the pending ban. Apple told him that his app will be pulled within a few days.

For those who don’t know yet, Google’s Android Play store is more reasonable when it comes to accepting file-sharing apps. And according to Apple some Android phones are indistinguishable from the iPhone, so…

Update: Both apps have been pulled by Apple now.

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

“Currently the app supports connections to uTorrent & BitTorrent clients but there are future plans to support Transmission on the Mac, as well as planned development of a native iPad version,” Conttrol developer Craig Donnelly told TorrentFreak.

While other BitTorrent apps slipped by Apple’s review team for a day or two, Conttrol’s entrance into the App store is not an isolated incident. A few months ago Apple also blessed Transmission RPC, a remote control for the Transmission popular client.

An interesting development to say the least.

It’s worth pointing out that neither app allows users to download files to the iPhone or iPad, they merely serve as a remote interface for desktop clients. However, that didn’t prevent Apple from issuing a publication ban on similar apps in the past.

Could it be that Apple has lifted its BitTorrent ban, or were these apps given the green light by mistake?

Conttrol developer Craig Donnelly told TorrentFreak that he hopes Apple changed its tune after realizing that there are many perfectly legal uses for BitTorrent.

“We all know there is a stigma associated with the BitTorrent protocol and that it is heavily associated with piracy. But I think this attitude has changed in recent years, and will change even further in the future.”

Earlier this week BitTorrent Inc. released their first mobile uTorrent client for Android. The company told TorrentFreak that there are no concrete plans for an iOS version of uTorrent, but perhaps that will change if Apple keeps accepting BitTorrent apps.

Time will tell…

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

However, not all of the big players in the entertainment business subscribe to this theory. During the MIPCOM conference where movie and TV moguls gather, Miramax CEO Mike Lang and Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos touched on the subject of piracy. Both appeared to have a rather positive stance towards the issue.

Lang, whose company today debuts the Blu-Ray version of the cult classic Pulp Fiction, emphasized that people don’t necessarily want to pirate, as long as they get what they want. “Innovate or die,” should be the motive of entertainment industry companies, where it’s key to listen to customers.

“Piracy has not been the bigger issue for our company,” Lang noted. “I think all consumers at some point in their life , whatever market of the world, don’t want to pirate. They really don’t.”

“Maybe not college kids, but ultimately over time they do not want to pirate, and that the way to react to that is to offer legitimate and great service for them,” he added.

Responding to a question from the audience, Miramax’s CEO talked about the lessons he learned from the music industry. Interestingly, Lang disputed that piracy is the main problem for the music industry.

“Why everyone does focus on piracy, for the music industry, what’s really interesting is that it’s not the biggest issue for the music industry,” he said. Lang explained that the change to digital music and the lower price tags that come with it shouldn’t be discounted.

Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos agreed on the effect of lower prices and said that “Walmart changed the music industry more than Napster.”

Another problem, related to the pricing issue, is the emergence of digital monopolies such as the one Apple has in the digital music business. This threatens the music industry more than piracy, Miramax’s CEO suggested.

“Apple is the strongest company in the music industry because there was not enough competition, and still to this day there is not enough competition. As an industry it can’t then influence, packaging, merchandising – all the things that are vital,” Lang said.

“As an industry – the movie industry – we have to be very cognisant of that. That’s why we did our deal with Netflix, and why we also did our deal with Hulu. We want multiple players to be successful.”

Sarandos also learned his lesson from watching the music industry struggle with their digital strategy. “When consumers tell you what they want, give it to them. Figure out a way to give it to them, because they will figure out a way to get it.”

Or in other words. Don’t blame piracy for everything, but innovate – or die.

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

And there are the dozens of spin-offs, using the familiar “all white background” format. One of the companies that made an ad inspired by the Get a Mac campaign is BitTorrent Inc., and interestingly enough they targeted an Apple product.

The BitTorrent vs. iTunes ads, which were never officially released to the public, emphasize how people can get higher quality content on BitTorrent at much faster speeds. They were created in 2007, before the iTunes store offered the high-definition downloads that were already commonplace on BitTorrent.

To find out more about the origin of the campaign TorrentFreak got in touch with Alvir Navin, who wrote the scripts together with Nic Birondo. Alvir, brother of BitTorrent Inc. co-founder Ashwin Navin, was working as director of content services at BitTorrent at the time.

“Back in 2007, a lot of users were complaining that iTunes downloads weren’t that fast, especially during the holiday season when the iTunes servers were taxed by the popularity of the service. So we played on the ‘Mac vs PC’ ad campaign to highlight the difference between centralized and decentralized content delivery,” Alvir told us.

“This was really just a fun project for me and a few friends that allowed us to pay homage to a few of our favorite film genres, drive home a relevant point about new methods of content delivery, and throw in a few digs about closed ecosystems,” he added.

For reasons unknown the ad campaign was never released. We recently stumbled onto it at the portfolio page of director Lucas Abel but other than that the campaign had never received any exposure.

In total three clips were produced titled “Crowd Beatdown”, “Zombies vs. Ninjas” and “Director’s Chair”. All follow the same format as the ads from the original Get a Mac campaign. The full credits listing all the people who helped create the videos are available at Lucas Abel’s website.

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

Via his Twitter account Nicholas Allegra, aka Comex, last night said: “So, the week after next I will be starting an internship with Apple.”

Part of the iPhone Dev Team, Comex rose to fame by leading the brilliant and free web-based unlocking solutions at JailBreakMe.com

Fellow Jailbreaker MuscleNerd was quick with the congratulations.

“Congrats on the Apple internship…what a great opportunity!” he said.

However, this announcement means that Comex has effectively switched sides and his undoubted genius will now be used to secure Apple devices from people just like him.

If he succeeds, Cydia – the alternative to the Apple App Store – will be doomed.

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

Nearly two decades later, Pretty Boy Gangsters’ Korvel Sutton is in the news again as he takes on Apple. Sutton claims that the Cupertino-based company is illegally distributing his music worldwide by including it in at least ten compilation albums.

This week Sutton, who hasn’t hired an attorney but is representing himself, filed a lawsuit at the U.S. District Court in California. In the brief complaint obtained by TorrentFreak he explains that Apple’s iTunes Store is selling several of of his tracks without permission. The works are being offered in 23 territories but according to Sutton, Apple is doing this without the necessary permission.

Attached to the complaint Sutton introduces several pieces of evidence including a copy of the U.S. copyright registration and a photocopy of the “Rollin Like a Star” cassette tape. He further provides the Court with the full list of compilation albums where his rights are being infringed, including “2 Live Crew & Posse“, “West Coast Posse 1” and “Elektro Hip Hop Party Vol. 3.”

According to information provided by Apple in an email, the disputed compilations were provided by the Dutch label Rams Horn Record. Interestingly, this not the first time this label has been involved in a copyright dispute. In 2004, Rams Horn lost a lawsuit against none other than Eminem for distributing his music without permission.

If Sutton’s claims are correct, Apple can be held liable for several copyright-related offenses for their part in illegally selling Pretty Boy Gangsters tracks. However, from the looks of it Rams Horn Record – who are not named in the lawsuit – may play an even bigger role as they provided the compilations in the first instance.

It is not an isolated incident for an artist not to get their cut when money is made from compilation albums. In Canada a group of artists won a class action lawsuit against Warner Music, Sony BMG Music, EMI Music and Universal Music for unauthorized use of their music in compilation albums. Together the labels pirated 300,000 tracks, for which they had to pay the artists $50 million in damages.

Whether Apple are found guilty or not, it is unlikely that the lawsuit will put a dent in the company’s healthy revenue streams. Unlike other copyright lawsuits we’ve seen in the past, Korvel Sutton is not asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Instead of claiming outrageous statutory damages, he simply wants complete payment of all royalties owed to date.

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