Just like most other trolls their business model is simple. Send threatening letters to ISP account holders telling them that they have been caught watching some pretty embarrassingly titled movies and inform them that paying a cash settlement is the only way to remedy the situation.

TorrentFreak invited people targeted by the company to contact us and over the past year we’ve had a steady stream of terribly worried individuals email us with requests for information. The more of these emails you read, the more you appreciate the scale of the heartbreak for all of those involved.

At this point we should be clear – some people we spoke with clearly knew more than they were prepared to admit and some probably did download some content without permission. However, many others obviously did not and when you come across these cases you can see that companies like GoldenEye really do not give a damn about who they hurt, and they will brush off collateral damage like it doesn’t exist.

If GoldenEye only took the time to speak to the people that we have, they might see what their threats are doing. One retired lady we spoke with said she had no idea what she was going to do. Threatening court action, GoldenEye had demanded around £500 for a movie she is extremely unlikely to have been interested in. The only money she had in the world was around £1,500 in savings and now this company wanted a third of that.

One young man told us that his parents had gone crazy when his father, as the bill payer, had been accused of downloading porn. Trying to protect himself against the wrath of his wife, the finger of blame naturally got pointed by the father at his son who in turn contacted us, desperate for a solution to clear his name. Another told us how his mother could no longer cope after receiving a third letter asking for money despite her innocence.

In cases like these where we believe that people have been wrongly accused we are more than happy to help. Throughout the year we corresponded with a couple of dozen individuals, half a dozen or so on a regular basis, in order to keep pace with their cases.

And guess what?

Of those who stuck in their heels, stood by their principles and refused to pay, GoldenEye stopped threatening 100% of them. After the initial three or four letters bounced back and forth, the company backed off, a characteristic of most bullies when they realize their intended victim is refusing to become one.

As a result, today these people are able to enjoy Christmas with their families. Rather than finding themselves £500 in the hole in order to finance GoldenEye’s Christmas party or Ben Dover’s festive lunch, that money is being spent were it should be.

“The final letter GoldenEye sent said that they were going to review my case and then make a decision on whether they were going to proceed or not. At that point I started to understand what was going on finally,” says ‘John’, a recipient of a £500 threat letter.

“GoldenEye are a company who just send letters to people to try and threaten and bully them into paying money, but do not take it any further. It was just like a game of poker to me as they were bluffing all the time so I played the game and won as I didn’t back down to their demands.”

“I am relieved I don’t have to pay any money to them as I don’t have that kind of money to give away. I can get on with my own life now without the extra worry of dealing with these legal scam artists,” he continues. “I am not letting people like this get what they want from me. They have to fight me in court if they want their money.”

Sure, it’s likely that GoldenEye have managed to get payments from a lot of people this year, but their complete lack of compassion has been hit head on by those who refused to give in. And for those people, Christmas this year will be all the more special.

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

This is common knowledge by now, but copyright holders still believe that exclusivity can earn them more in the long run, even when it hurts legitimate customers.

A good example of this twisted reasoning is Disney’s decision to make certain Christmas videos unavailable on Amazon because they want people to tune in to their TV channel instead. This ban is not limited to new customers and includes those who already purchased the videos.

One of the affected customers of Disney’s restrictive policy is Bill, who informed BoingBoing that the Christmas themed ‘Disney Prep & Landing’ he bought for his kids last year had been pulled from his library.

“Amazon has explained to me that Disney can pull their content at any time and ‘at this time they’ve pulled that show for exclusivity on their own channel.’ In other words, Amazon sold me a Christmas special my kids can’t watch during the run up to Christmas,” Bill notes.

“It’ll be available in July though!” he adds.

Those who go to Disney Prep & Landing’s Amazon listing now get the following notice: “Due to our licensing agreements this video is currently not available for purchase or rental.” And that’s not the only title that has been pulled, the same notice also appears for other Disney Christmas videos such as ‘The Muppet Christmas Carol‘ and ‘Beauty And The Beast: The Enchanted Christmas.’

Appropriately enough, Disney decided to allow people access to the Ebenezer Scrooge story, as Disney’s a Christmas Carol remains available for now.

Amazon appears to be torn by the situation and Bill says that he received “a very generous credit” to purchase another Christmas movie for his kids.

According to Cory Doctorow, however, Disney is not the only one that deserves blame for this customer-unfriendly practice. He notes that Amazon should have never allowed copyright holders to make purchased content unavailable to begin with.

“Yes, Disney is stupid and evil for doing this. But when Amazon decided that it would offer studios the right to revoke access to purchased videos, they set the stage for this,” Doctorow comments.

“This is what was set in motion in the 1970s, when we started using the term ‘intellectual property’ instead of ‘copyright’ or ‘author’s monopoly.’ If the movie is Disney’s ‘property’ for ever and ever, it follows that it is never your property, no matter that you ‘buy’ it,” Doctorow adds.

Adding to the above, it is questionable whether Disney will win anything with this move.

Aside from annoying customers who can no longer watch their purchases, all the titles Disney pulled from Amazon are widely available through unauthorized channels. As a result, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Disney’s actions cause a bump in piracy for these movies.

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

What Megaupload did – and this may shock you – was hosted videos uploaded by its users.

The site had no control over what was uploaded and the DMCA allowed for that with a system known as ‘safe harbor’. It’s a pretty unimportant law that allows tens of thousands of companies to avoid trillions in damages caused by other people.

However, in its stupidity Megaupload over-estimated the credibility of the legislation and recklessly followed the DMCA to the letter, even going as fair as allowing rightsholders direct access to the company’s servers to remove content. A wild and stupid move that the company would live to regret.

Megaupload’s blatant following of the law showed that without doubt the company’s operators were all criminals who should be arrested and harshly punished. Not only were they hosting Hollywood movies among billions of other files, but profiting from them too. That was going too far.

If only Megaupload could be more like YouTube they wouldn’t have experienced such a crushing defeat in January. How much more like YouTube they would need to be in order to actually benefit from the DMCA’s safe harbor is up to the whims of the MPAA of course, but we’re pretty sure that since it’s almost Christmas the industry outfit will be keen on forgiveness.

So, since YouTube is operating just fine, when the new Mega launches in January it will presumably model itself on the Google-owned video site and discover It’s a Wonderful Life after all.

It could have drawbacks though – not having the MPAA continuously knocking might leave Kim Dotcom with a certain amount of uneasiness, like something was missing, like having A Christmas Without Snow. Decisions, decisions…

But with the new Mega just around the corner, it must be proving A Fairly Odd Christmas for Dotcom. Not that he’ll be Home Alone or anything like that, but I expect he’d rather be outside with The Snowman his kids might be building (if New Zealand even had any this time of year) instead of being hunched over a computer.

Nevertheless, it’s almost certain he’ll find time for A Christmas Carol, a verse of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or two, and there’s bound to be lots and lots of gifts – no one could accuse the German of being a Scrooge that’s for sure.

And there’ll be the usual Christmas-themed movies on TV of course, one with awkward titles that can’t so easily be threaded into a sentence about festivities at the Dotcom mansion such as Christmas Child, Mickey’s Once Upon a Christmas, A Mom for Christmas and Barbie in a Christmas Carol.

Happy Christmas Everyone!!!!!

…..and long live Mega YouTube!!

URGENT UPDATE: Everyone at Google has been arrested, more when we have it.

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

These days Moore is better known as Skrillex, and since taking his current form in 2008 he’s been going from strength to strength. Last year he released his debut EP, My Name is Skrillex, as a free download and he hasn’t looked back.

He’s currently nominated for no less than six Grammys including Best New Artist, Best Dance Recording and Best Dance/Electronica Album. Everyone seems to love Skrill’ and today his fans will love him even more.

After delivering his much anticipated new album Bangarang this week, Skrillex reached out to fans both rich and poor, and trashed the mainstream recording industry mantra that “file-sharing is evil”.

“Happy holidays just like I promised,” said Skrillex on his Facebook page. “Just like I always say, go pirate it if you don’t have the money, I just want you to have it.”

“You can buy it here, either way i’ll love you,” he concludes.

Quite how long Skrillex will be able to deliver this crowd-pleasing attitude is unclear. He’s signed to Big Beat Records, an Atlantic Records subsidiary which in turn is owned by Warner Music. Hopefully, though, Skrillex will be left alone to do his thing, and here’s why he should be.

Modern electronic music, and by that I mean material from the last 25 years, has drawn its lifeblood from piracy. Sampling, cut-and-paste, mixtape and more recently file-sharing cultures have ensured that artists like Skrillex can hit the mainstream, gain a huge fanbase, get Grammy nominated and yet still give stuff away for free. And make money.

But perhaps more importantly in these turbulent times, this kind of approach gains the respect of fans, regardless of how deep their pockets are today. And tomorrow, one way or another, they will spend. If they actually enjoy doing that, the rest is easy.

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

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

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.

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

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