Archive for February, 2010
Torrents.
Author: admin
On February 18, 2010, RU-Center, Russia’s largest domain name registrar and web-hosting provider, pulled the plug on the Torrents.ru domain name, suspending it with immediate effect and leaving 4 million users and 1 million torrents homeless.
A representative from RU-Center confirmed that the domain was blocked on the orders of the Investigative Division of the regional prosecutor’s office in Chertanovo district, Moscow, but at that time could not disclose the reasons.
Subsequently it was revealed that the seizing of the domain was due to violation of Article 146 of the Criminal Code – “Illegal use of objects of copyright or related rights, as well as acquisition, storage, transportation of counterfeit copies of works or phonograms for sale, committed on a large scale”.
Although Torrents.ru operated a ‘notice and take down’ procedure whereby copyright owners can have torrents removed “no questions asked”, the complaint specifically mentioned software developed by 1C and AutoDesk. Both companies have since denied initiating proceedings against the site but rumors persist that they were somehow involved.
After so easily losing their domain in the .RU zone, the operators of Torrents.ru weren’t about to take any chances by registering a new domain with the same authority. Within hours the site had relocated to a new domain at rutracker.org, apparently registered from the Bahamas.
Understandably the Torrents.ru domain seizure has caused quite a stir in Russia. Even though the law allows a month for a dispute to be rectified, RU-Center acted immediately and without being ordered to do so by a court, prompting theories of back-room deals under the influence of US interests. The operators of rutracker.org say that they are prepared to go to court over the case and will complain to ICANN.
“It was absolutely illegal,” said the owner of Torrents.ru in a recent interview. “We will appeal against it, but in this case it’s not the most important thing. The precedent is created. If you are an owner of domain name in .ru zone, you should know that it can be suspended at any moment by the order of an investigator.”
Following the domain closure a petition was set up addressed to President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, asking them to investigate the authorities who are said to have overstepped the limits of their powers. It currently has more than 15,300 signatures.
Other less conventional responses to the seizure have also been underway, with the Russian Pirate Party reporting that the websites of 1C and online cinema EKinoT have been subjected to DDoS attacks. In January, EKinoT said it would work with the Ministry of Culture to ‘blacklist’ sites which compete illegally with its business – Torrents.ru was one of the sites mentioned along with sharereactor.ru, intv.ru, binmovie.ru and epidem.ru.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
Top 10 Torrent Sites Shortly Without Mininova
Author: admin
Compared to a year ago the BitTorrent landscape has changed significantly. The Pirate Bay decided to shut down its tracker last fall and a few weeks later Mininova partly shut down its website. However, with the fall of Mininova many new torrent sites emerged, with KickassTorrents being the most successful one.
It almost seems like history is repeating itself. Early 2005, just a few weeks after that period’s leading torrent site, Suprnova.org, closed its doors, Mininova was founded. In the years that followed the site grew out to become the most visited torrent site. That growth was stunted in November 2009, when a negative verdict in a court battle against the local anti-piracy outfit BREIN forced the operators of the site to remove over a million torrents.
As expected Mininova’s decision resulted in a disastrous drop in traffic, as its users spread out over other torrent sites including some promising newcomers. Today, three months after Mininova’s downfall, the site is about to disappear from the top 10 list of most visited torrent sites. The Pirate Bay is currently leading the list closely followed by the meta-search engine Torrentz and isoHunt. KickassTorrents is currently in 9th place, which is a remarkable achievement consdering the site is only a few months old.
Below you’ll find a list of the 10 most-visited torrent sites as of today. Only public and English language sites are included. The list is based on traffic rank reports from Compete, Alexa and SiteReport’s World Rank. The number of daily visitors and page views are estimates.
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#1 THEPIRATEBAY.ORG
- Daily Visitors: 4,600,136
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#2 TORRENTZ.COM
- Daily Visitors: 2,756,280
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#3 ISOHUNT.COM
- Daily Visitors: 2,285,811
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#4 BTJUNKIE.ORG
- Daily Visitors: 1,363,883
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#5 TORRENTREACTOR.NET
- Daily Visitors: 919,552
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#6 DEMONOID.COM
- Daily Visitors: 728,513
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#7 TORRENTDOWNLOADS.NET
- Daily Visitors: 686,219
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#8 MONOVA.ORG
- Daily Visitors: 670,536
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#9 KICKASSTORRENTS.COM
- Daily Visitors: 642,498
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#10 MININOVA.ORG
- Daily Visitors: 632,519
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Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
TorrentFreak TV Season 2 Continues
Author: admin
TorrentFreak TV covers some of the best, most interesting or remarkable stories from the wonderful world of file-sharing. An (ad-free) HD version of this episode is available on EZTV.
As always, we’re looking forward to your commentary. For questions or suggestions, feel free to contact the crew at tv@torrentfreak.com. We encourage contributions from viewers!
An iTunes feed is available here, and a regular RSS feed here.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
Supreme Court Movie Piracy Case Could Reveal Wrong Person
Author: admin
Max Manus, a World War II movie based on the real-life events of resistance fighter Max Manus was the most expensive Norwegian film production to date.
Inevitably, a version of the movie that had been recorded in an empty theater leaked onto the Internet. Producer John M. Jacobsen was furious, vowing to track down the leaker mercilessly.
An investigation controlled by notorious pirate hunter Espen Tøndel and the Simonsen law firm was launched. They later announced that they had tracked down the IP address from where the movie was first uploaded to the Internet.
After the police expressed disinterest, Simonsen went to the courts to force an ISP to reveal the identity of the individual behind the IP address. Much to the disappointment of transparency advocates in Norway, few people know the outcome of that case since it’s being kept a secret. All we know is that one party wasn’t happy with the verdict and the case is now off to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court will have to decide if it’s acceptable for privately owned companies with financial interests in the outcome of a case to be given the power to obtain the identity of an Internet subscriber behind an IP-address, whether or not they committed the alleged offense.
And “whether or not” is a key phrase here. Not only does an IP address alone fail to identify an individual sat at a keyboard, TorrentFreak has been provided with information which indicates that the person the investigators claim to be the first uploader of the movie is actually no such thing.
As with much pre-released material, the content first makes its way on to the Internet via so-called ‘Scene’ groups. The Max Manus movie was first released by a group called KAMERA on a secure site on December 29th 2008 at 14:04:16.
A note the group included with the release reads: “We would recommend everyone to go and watch this movie in your local theater, and even buy the dvd/blu-ray when it hits the stores. This is a great movie, and it definitely deserves it!”
Instead of going after KAMERA, Simonsen are going after a much easier target – a secondary uploader who made his upload to a private BitTorrent tracker just under 3 hours later. Despite all the fuss, to date the movie has been downloaded just 2,800 times from the site it was released on.
Going through intermediaries, a source inside KAMERA confirmed to TorrentFreak they had nothing to do with the BitTorrent release but understandably declined to comment further. A source close to the group said they were disappointed that the movie had escaped onto the wider Internet due to all the publicity it’s received.
The tactic of going for easy targets is nothing new for anti-piracy groups, especially if it grabs some headlines. In 2005, a ‘workprint’ version of Star Wars Episode III leaked onto the Internet, put there by an previously unknown group called VISA. No member of this outfit was ever traced but the admins of EliteTorrents paid dearly for later making the movie available on BitTorrent.
In December 2009, following mountains of bad press and propaganda, Gilberto Sanchez, 47, was arrested at his home in the Bronx on charges of violating copyright law and now faces three years in prison and a $250,000 fine for supposedly being the infamous Wolverine ‘workprint’ leaker. “I’m a scapegoat for this,” he later told the New York Times. “I’m gonna get crucified.”
Few believe that Sanchez was the original uploader of Wolverine and now it appears the mystery person behind the IP address in the Max Manus investigation is not the original uploader either. Whether his or her identity will be made available to the anti-piracy lawyers is now up to the Supreme Court to decide.
While the actual first leakers of pre-release material continue to remain utterly elusive, those who dare to leak onto the wider Internet will continue to shoulder all of the blame, thanks to the inability of anti-piracy groups to investigate any further.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
Evanescence is Back
Author: admin
“Bribed” Pirate Bay Cop Now Heads Anti-Piracy Unit
Author: admin
When the news got out that the lead investigator in the Pirate Bay case had been ‘rewarded‘ with a job for six months at Warner Bros., one of the plaintiffs in the trial, rumors of corruption and bribes were hard to hold back.
It later became clear that Keyzer had started working for the movie studio before the Pirate Bay investigation was closed, which obviously made things worse and fueled even more conspiracy theories.
Warner Bros. denied these allegations initially and stated that the investigator was not employed or paid by the movie studio while he was still working on the case.
Warner Bros. later retracted this statement and admitted that Jim Keyzer indeed started working for the movie studio before the Pirate Bay investigation was closed. This confession didn’t sit well with the defendants in the Pirate Bay trial who responded by filing several complaints with the police, including an allegation of bribery.
The police looked into the complaints but decided not to investigate the case. “[there is] no reason to believe that a crime has been committed by anyone employed by the police,” the prosecutor’s department stated.
That was the last we heard of Keyzer, who failed to show up at the Pirate Bay trial although he was listed as a witness. It was never a secret that after his six months at Warner Bros. he was welcomed back into the police force, but this week many were surprised to discover that he is now actually heading the IT Crime Unit.
One of the main tasks of Keyzer’s unit is to investigate file-sharing related cases. Obviously this once again fuels rumors that Keyzer is not the most objective officer to fulfill this position, to say the least.
Christian Engstrom, who represents the Pirate Party in the European Parliament, is also baffled by the news and finds it highly suspicious that the movie studios are “allowed to buy their own policemen.”
The appeal of the Pirate Bay trial for which Keyzer supplied evidence is expected to be scheduled this summer.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
Interview: Serj Tankian — “Everything I do is strange…even with System of a Down we were always without borders”
Author: admin
Interview: Mark Pellegrino of Lost and Supernatural — Does J.J. Abrams know who whacked President Kennedy?
Author: admin
Is Google a safe haven for BitTorrent sites?
Author: admin
Much like Google, The Pirate Bay and isoHunt are search engines that aim to index information posted on the Internet and make it findable to their users.
Google’s YouTube shows even more similarities to torrent sites as it allows users to submit content, with the only difference being that YouTube actually hosts the uploaded files whereas torrent sites only link to content indirectly through .torrent files.
In the last year, three of the largest torrent sites – The Pirate Bay, Mininova and isoHunt – were all taken to court by copyright holders for assisting in copyright infringement, and all three sites lost their cases to some degree. Strangely enough Google has never said a word about these cases other than to distance themselves from The Pirate Bay team after they were sentenced.
Despite this attempt at demarcation, three Google employees are now in a very similar position as the aforementioned torrent site operators. An Italian court just handed out suspended jail sentences to three Google employees for ‘allowing’ users to upload a video that invaded the privacy of a third person.
The three employees were not aware of the upload before they were notified by the police, but they made it possible, much like they make it possible to upload copyrighted content. The similarities with torrent search engines are striking.
It is needless to say that Google is not amused by the court ruling. While the company kept its mouth shut in response to the legal actions surrounding the torrent search engines, they now speak of an attack on “the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built.”
“Common sense dictates that only the person who films and uploads a video to a hosting platform could take the steps necessary to protect the privacy and obtain the consent of the people they are filming,” Google’s Matt Sucherman wrote in a blog post yesterday.
This response from Google does indeed seem logical, and we can easily apply the same reasoning to sites that index and host .torrent files. The operators of torrent sites and video sites can’t possibly verify and screen the content of all uploaded files. This is something the site’s users should be held accountable for.
This doesn’t mean of course that the site’s operators should ignore the law. The Pirate Bay for example has always been very responsive to requests from the police concerning illegal material linked to by the site. IsoHunt goes even further as it actively works together with copyright holders and Mininova even allowed copyright holders to prevent infringing torrents from being re-uploaded in the future.
According to Google such policies should be good enough to operate a site like YouTube without running into legal trouble.
“European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy,” Sucherman writes.
So here we have Google in a similar position as most torrent sites are in. Although the Italian verdict is outrageous the obvious upside is that unlike the torrent sites, Google has the financial power to successfully fight the verdict. According to former Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde, Google got what it deserved.
“It’s good that someone takes on Google for a change. Let them take the heat for once – and let them make sure that other sites that they’ve previously had no problem filtering, that basically do the same as them, don’t end up in this shit the next time,” Sunde told TorrentFreak.
“I think it’s good that time has finally caught up Google. Maybe now we have a level playing field here. They have to take the fight as well. Previously they only said nice things about how important the Internet was, and then ignored all of the things going on. Even supporting them – China for instance,” he added.
“A big player like Google has the financial muscles to fight this thing. And we all know that Italy is just full of rules made by Berlusconi, for Berlusconi,” Sunde said, adding, “That fascist needs to go.”
Google has indeed committed itself, and said it “will vigorously appeal this decision.” The whole case revolves around the question of whether or not the operators of media portals and search engines should be held accountable for the actions of their users.
In recent months Italian courts have clearly answered positively to this question. They have opened the door for a nationwide block of file-sharing sites and with yesterday’s decision file and video hosting sites are not safe any longer either. So the next question is, can Google secure a safe haven for torrent sites?
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
AFACT Blasts Judge, Will Appeal iiNet ISP Liability Decision
Author: admin
Earlier this month it was celebrations all round for the operators of Aussie ISP iiNet, as they successfully defended a Hollywood movie studio legal onslaught directed by AFACT, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft.
Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network took iiNet to court, claiming that the ISP did nothing to stop its customers from sharing copyright media via BitTorrent and was therefore liable for their infringements.
Judge Justice Dennis Cowdroy disagreed, and handed a huge victory to iiNet.
Today marked the deadline for AFACT to appeal the decision and as expected, they did just that.
In a statement the anti-piracy group said there were good grounds to appeal a judgment which it is dramatically claiming has left an “unworkable environment for content creators and content providers and represents a serious threat to Australia’s digital economy.”
AFACT boss Neil Gane said the judgment conflicted with established copyright law in Australia.
“The court found large scale copyright infringements, that iiNet knew they were
occurring, that iiNet had the contractual and technical capacity to stop them and iiNet did nothing about them,” he said. “In line with previous case law, this would have amounted to authorization of copyright infringement.”
Gane went on to state that the ruling rendered so-called ’safe harbor’ provisions of copyright ineffective. “If this decision stands, the ISPs have all the protection without any of the responsibility,” he said.
AFACT’s appeal, filed with the Fedral Court today, consists of 15 areas where they believe Justice Cowdroy got it wrong. An analysis of the appeal grounds can be found here.
Chief of iiNet, Michael Malone, said Justice Cowdroy’s judgment was unequivocal and the company is confident the Court will stand by its original ruling, noting that more legal proceedings will not provide a solution.
“It is more than disappointing and frustrating that the studios have chosen this unproductive path,” Mr Malone said in a statement. “This legal case has not stopped one illegal download and further legal appeals will not stop piracy.
“The studios themselves admitted during the court hearings that making content freely and cheaply available online was an effective way to combat piracy. People are crying out to access the studios materials, so much so some are prepared to steal it. A more effective approach would be for the studios to make their content more readily and cheaply available online,” notes Malone.
Upon losing the original trial, AFACT was ordered to pay iiNet’s legal costs, revealed to be $5.7 million ($5.08 million USD). Earlier this week AFACT said it will return to court in order to avoid paying some of the costs.
The appeal hearing for the original case is likely be held this year and according to iiNet’s Michael Malone, it should take up significantly fewer days than first time around.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
Interview: Mary Mary — “Changing the way you think is the biggest transformation…”
Author: admin
US Government Consults Public On Illegal File-Sharing
Author: admin
The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act was one of the last pieces of legislation passed by President Bush back in 2008. The purpose of the act is to toughen current anti-piracy measures.
Among other things the act calls for harsher punishments, the creation of a dedicated FBI anti-piracy unit and a copyright czar who reports directly to the White House. Last year President Obama appointed Victoria Espinel as the new copyright czar and she is now going full steam ahead with the new anti-piracy plans.
For these new plans Espinel is now looking for comments and input from the United States public. Although this might come across as an open and transparent process, the czar already seems to have made up her mind, indicated by the leading nature of the questions.
Yesterday a request for written submissions from the public went out and the copyright czar wants answers to two basic questions, answers that may or may not be used for the development of the new anti-piracy plans. Let’s take a look at what the Government is asking.
In the request we read that the first question the public should respond to is “regarding the costs to the U.S. economy resulting from intellectual property violations, and the threats to public health and safety created by infringement.”
The second part deals with “detailed recommendations from the public regarding the objectives and content of the Joint Strategic Plan and other specific recommendations for improving the Government’s intellectual property enforcement efforts.”
To summarize, the copyright czar wants the public to come up with examples and ideas detailing how piracy affects society and how it should be combated. Unfortunately the request seems to indicate that it is already concluded that piracy has a negative impact and that tougher measures are needed.
It is not too late of course to prove the opposite and voice our concerns. Let’s elaborate a little on the two questions.
The first question is an easy one. Although piracy might hurt some parts of the entertainment industry there is no objective and conclusive report that proves how it negatively effects the entire industry, let alone the United States economy as a whole.
One of the most authoritative reports on the economic and cultural consequences of file-sharing on the music, movie and games industries was published last year. The report, which was commissioned by the government, estimated that file-sharing has a positive effect on the Dutch economy. While it was recognized that the entertainment industry suffers some losses, these don’t outweigh the positive effects of file-sharing.
Other academic publications mainly show that music piracy has no, or a positive effect on actual sales. The more people download through illegal channels, the more they tend to pay for music. This indicates that music fans do want to pay for music but that they download in addition, which could be due to the lack of unlimited download services.
The second question posed by the czar deals with the enforcement side of copyright infringement. One of the main questions here is how to deter people from downloading files illegally.
Again we’d like to start off with pointing to the Dutch report mentioned earlier. In the report it was concluded that measures to combat piracy should not be implemented before the entertainment industries have come up with sufficient legal online alternatives. This suggests that the entertainment industries are in part causing piracy by failing to offer decent competitive DRM-free products.
Furthermore, it is very doubtful that harsher punishments and stricter enforcement will have any effect. Last year the RIAA won two major lawsuits against individual file-sharers and this hasn’t changed the attitude or behavior of the average file-sharer at all. If anything, tougher enforcement will drive piracy underground, motivating the public to hide their identities online.
The bottom line is that the enforcement question is irrelevant. Technology will always stay ahead of any new type of legislation. The new three-strikes law in France for example can be easily circumvented and the same will be true for other measures. Much more can be done by focusing on the core of the problem, that is, taking away the incentive to download illegally.
The issues we have briefly touched on here are just the tip of the iceberg, and we assume that our readers can easily list many more. If so, please take this opportunity to have your voices heard. The US Pirate Party, who alerted us about this public consultation, has a mailing form which you can use, but regular email works fine too. For those who plan to comment we would advise to include as many credible references as possible.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
RapidShare Ordered To Proactively Filter Book Titles
Author: admin
On February 4th 2010, several large book publishers filed a lawsuit against file-hosting site, RapidShare. The plaintiffs, Bedford, Freeman & Worth and Macmillan, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, The McGraw-Hill Companies and Pearson, are large suppliers of textbooks.
The lawsuit cited 148 titles to which the publishers own the copyright, and demanded that RapidShare stop user-uploaded electronic versions of the same being made available to the public via their file-hosting service.
On February 10th 2010, the District Court in Hamburg handed down a preliminary ruling against RapidShare which ordered that by February 17th the company must stop the book titles named in the lawsuit being made available on their website.
The Court ruled that RapidShare must monitor user uploads to ensure that none of the book titles are put onto their servers and go on to ensure that the public never gains access to copies that somehow slip through this filtering.
According to Inside Higher Ed, every time a prohibited book named in the injunction is made available on RapidShare it could cost the company up to 250,000 euros ($339,000) or even earn company bosses 2 years in jail.
“This ruling is an important step forward. Not only does it affirm that file-sharing copyrighted content without permission is against the law, but it attaches a hefty financial punishment to the host, in this case Rapidshare, for noncompliance,” said Tom Allen, CEO of the Association of American Publishers. “Consider this a shot across the bow for others who attempt to profit from the theft of copyrighted works online,” he added.
While there is little doubt that copyright material is indeed available via RapidShare, a press release by the book publishers oversteps the mark a little by stating that the company “encourages the unauthorized uploading of content with a variety of reward programs.” While RapidShare could be accused of many things, openly encouraging its customers to upload pirate material is not one of them.
This is not the first time that RapidShare has been ordered to filter content. In 2009, the Regional Court in Hamburg ruled that the company must pro-actively filter around 5,000 music tracks from music industry group GEMA’s catalog to prevent them being made available to the public.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
New Zealand Introduces File-Sharing Amendment Bill
Author: admin
In 2008, the New Zealand Government proposed new legislation to deal with illicit file-sharing. Section92A was the subject of widespread protests which eventually caused the Government to scrap their plans and go back to the the drawing board in order to remove the “guilty upon accusation” elements.
Today, Commerce Minister Simon Power will introduce The Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill which will repeal Section 92A and replace it with a modified regime intended to reduce illegal file sharing.
“The major feature is the three-notice process, which educates the public about illegal file sharing and provides effective methods for copyright owners to enforce their copyright,” says Power. “It ensures that file sharers are given adequate warnings that unauthorised sharing of copyright works is illegal.”
Despite the more-gently named “three notice” regime (versus the more commonly used “3 strikes” term) the effects are the same. The bill will enable copyright owners to claim damages and make requests for the Internet subscriptions of infringers to be suspended.
That said, the element most criticized in Section92A was the lack of a right to reply to an accusation, and that appears to have been addressed. The Bill will extend the jurisdiction of the country’s Copyright Tribunal, which will hear both sides of the argument and will be empowered to rule on cases of alleged infringement.
“It’s important that account holders are given a reasonable time to stop infringing before enforcement takes place. The bill prescribes timeframes so account holders have the opportunity to address illegal file sharing activity occurring on their internet connection before enforcement action is taken,” says Mr Power for the Government, adding, “They will also have the chance to challenge notices and may request hearings at the Copyright Tribunal to contest infringement claims.
Yesterday it was revealed that Peter Dengate-Thrush, a lawyer specializing in Internet and IP law, has been appointed to the three-person Copyright Tribunal.
Dengate-Thrush, who was legal advisor to InternetNZ for 3 years and is the chairman of Internet policy-making body ICANN, will serve on the Tribunal for five years.
“I straddle both camps, in that I have got a history of involvement in developing internet institutions, practices and rules and also my daily practice is as an intellectual property barrister,” he said in a recent interview.
“I make my living out of advising trademark owners and copyright owners and fully appreciate the consequences of infringements. These are bad things for the economy, communities, inventors and creators of good ideas.”
The Tribunal will be able to fine persistent infringers up to $15,000 ($10,539 USD) with the exact amount linked to damages alleged to have been suffered by the copyright owners. It will also be able to order the suspension of Internet accounts for six months.
“[There] will come a time when disconnecting them [repeat infringers] for a period is the right thing,” added Dengate-Thrush.
While welcoming most of the amendments, InternetNZ, the group which oversees the Internet in New Zealand, says the account suspension clause needs to go.
“The only major flaw remaining in the legislation is that its provision for the suspension of people’s Internet accounts. Internet users would simply start a new account at another ISP,” says Policy Director Jordan Carter.
“While suspension would require an order of the District Court, it is still unworkable and unnecessary. InternetNZ will argue strongly that suspension be deleted by the Select Committee.”
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
Interview: Hot Chelle Rae — “My iPhone makes the Lightsaber sound when I pull it out!”
Author: admin
isoHunt to Appeal in MPAA Lawsuit, Sees The Lite
Author: admin
Early 2006, the MPAA issued a complaint against isoHunt and its sister site Torrentbox, claiming that owner Gary Fung operated file-sharing services and profited from copyright infringement.
The lengthy legal procedure that followed came to a temporary end December last year, when a US Federal Court in California ruled that isoHunt was indeed guilty of violating US copyright law. Since the circumstances of the case were so similar to earlier ones involving Napster and Grokster, the judge decided there was no need to have a full trial and instead granted a summary judgment against isoHunt.
That was not the end of the case though. Last month at the status conference the judge opened the door for an interlocutory appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. “Before we appeal however, we must undergo injunction motions and that’s what we are doing now,” Gary Fung told TorrentFreak.
The MPAA has already filed its injunction and suggested that isoHunt should filter its search results based on generic keywords that may be used to describe copyrighted titles. In a response isoHunt has filed an injunction stating that such a feature is a bad idea for several reasons.
“The Plaintiffs’ [MPAA studios] proposed injunction and its keyword type filter, in our view, raises serious issues on the balance between freedom of speech, fair use and copyright protectionism. Such a keyword filter is also impossible to implement if it’s to have any sort of precision, nor can it avoid conflict with free use cases, free commerce, or extra-territorial law,” Fung said.
“If it were actually to be mandated and put into operation, plaintiffs’ proposed filter would make Swiss cheese out of the dictionary,” isoHunt’s lawyer Ira Rothken writes in the injunction, arguing that a keyword filter would also censor a lot of legal content.
“If a new TV show title is based on a popular phrase that is already in the name of an amateur film or Linux program, distribution of the film or program will be blocked,” the lawyer added.
Instead of filtering isoHunt proposes to use a Lite version of isoHunt instead, a version of the site that no longer contains any of the red flags for inducement that were found at Summary Judgment. In other words, the ‘lite’ version of the site is no different than search engines such as Google and Yahoo!, except that it’s limited to torrent files.
“Should the Court accept a version of isoHunt Lite during the injunction phase, it may become the required interface for our US users,” Gary Fung told TorrentFreak.
It is noted in the injunction that Google and Yahoo! and other search engines can serve as torrent search engines also, and that most of the files that can be found via isoHunt are indexed by these other search engines as well. Gary Fung even conducted a test on a sample of torrent files to prove this point.
“This test shows that 95% of the torrent files indexed on isoHunt are equally available through the main search engines,” isoHunt’s lawyer writes to the court.
With the Lite version of isoHunt Gary Fung hopes to prevent the site’s closure in the US. If the Court somehow rules that it’s still violating copyright law, one has to wonder what implications this has for Google, Yahoo! and other search engines.
The case continues.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
Interview: David Gray — “You can break a string or you can break a leg…all you need is the raw song…”
Author: admin
UK Says â€No’ To Disconnecting File-Sharers, Sort Of
Author: admin
In November 2009, details finally became public concerning the UK Digital Economy Bill, which aimed to turn elements of Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report into law.
Part of the proposals indicated that Internet users would face being monitored by the music and movie industries. Their ISPs would then be required to pass on copyright infringement notices based on evidence supplied by anti-piracy tracking companies.
If file-sharing wasn’t reduced by 70% in 2 years using these ‘educational’ measures, alleged persistent infringers faced the ultimate sanction of being disconnected from the Internet.
The proposals were met with massive opposition, with ISP TalkTalk going as far as threatening legal action over what it says amounts to a breach of human rights.
Adding to the pressure, a petition against the proposals was launched on the Number 10 website demanding;
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to abandon Lord Mandelson’s plans to ban individuals from the internet based on their use of â€peer to peer’ file sharing.”
The Government has now responded, and for TalkTalk and the countless others who share their views, on the surface it seems like good news, but a closer look reveals a somewhat disappointing result.
In its response the Government says that it wants as many citizens as possible to enjoy the benefits of the Internet and recognizes that technology has changed the way people access media content, in some cases “faster than products and services commercially on offer have developed” – an apparent reference to the superior accessibility of unauthorized downloads.
The Government goes on to say that they take the interests of artists and creators very seriously and have been working hard to find solutions to online copyright infringement. Nevertheless, they will not require ISPs to monitor their users to detect infringements and downloaders will be pretty safe, as is the case now, with detection being focused on those who upload material without permission.
On potential disconnections for persistent file-sharers – the key issue for many – the Government goes on to say:
“We will not terminate the accounts of infringers – it is very hard to see how this could be deemed proportionate except in the most extreme – and therefore probably criminal – cases.”
What categorizes an infringement as ‘criminal’ is open to interpretation, but is likely to mean very large-scale infringement, infringement for profit, or both. So good news then? Well, not quite.
Despite throwing out absolute permanent disconnections as a measure against file-sharers, the Government is still considering other ‘technical’ solutions if the ISP warnings aren’t effective including “band width restriction, a daily downloading limit or, as a last resort, temporary account suspension.”
So we’re back to disconnections again. In terms of time, ‘temporary’ is not defined. Of course, anything less than ‘permanent’ fits the wording. A day? A month? A year?
Another part of the response which has been mentioned several times before and still remains puzzling is this section:
“In the cases of the most serious infringers, if a rights holder obtains a court order, the ISP would have to provide information so that the rights holder can take targeted court action.”
As anyone who has followed the activities of Davenport Lyons and ACS:Law will tell you, the personal details of anyone alleged to have shared a single file can easily be obtained by rightsholders.
Sadly, despite the headline-grabbing statements, it seems that little has changed with this response from the Government.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.
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Lil Wayne Gets His Grill Fixed and Starts Tweeting Before Going to the Can
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Piracy Isn’t Killing The Movie Industry, Greed Is
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First off, we have to make it clear that the major movie studios are doing great at the box-office, despite movie piracy riding at an all-time high. Other parts of the movie industry, such as video rental outlets, do seem to struggle and they have the studios to thank for this, not piracy.
In January of this year Warner Bros. announced that new DVDs will not be available at online rental outlet Netflix for the first month after they are released in stores. Warner Bros. hoped that this would increase DVD sales. However, the most likely side effect is an increase in piracy and a loss of income to Netflix.
It is a step back in a time where consumers are screaming for on-demand access and the flexibility to choose the option they want for their video consumption. The studios are clearly skeptical of all these ‘new’ technologies and are frantically adding restrictions to maximize their revenues, ignoring all market signals.
The greed of the music studios hasn’t gone unnoticed by Paul Uniacke, head of the Video Ezy and Blockbuster video rental chains. “Studio greed is what’s holding back video-on-demand,” he said in response to the studios demands to pay huge sums of money upfront if they want to offer on-demand streams.
“Movie studios are still as arrogant as the music moguls were before digital downloads and piracy destroyed them. The only thing that’s protecting the movie studios (from more widespread illegal downloading) now is file size,” Uniacke added.
Much like the big music labels, the studios are trying to control how people consume media to an extent where it becomes impossible for innovative retailers to offer a product that can compete with piracy. By this process they are killing their own business and that of many retailers, while blaming piracy for the damages.
Consumers demand convenience, availability and a high quality product for a fair price. Still, the decisions of the music labels and movie studios are mostly heading in the opposite direction as they cling to their old business of trying to safeguard their monopolies.
Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.