Thus far the United States Government has kept relatively quiet on this issue, but that doesn’t mean that such plans are not being discussed behind close doors.

According to Ari Emanuel, a famous Hollywood talent agent and the model for the character Ari Gold in the hit series Entourage, Hollywood lobbyists are working hard to convince President Obama and others to ram through similar legislation in the United States.

“We are in the midst of talking to the president and some attorney generals and [we are] trying to implement a three strikes and you’re out rule,” Emanuel said, while adding that this issue would most likely result in a “fight with ISPs”.

At this point it is impossible to assess the exact nature of these talks, but since Ari Emanuel is the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, there is no doubt that these talks are taken seriously. President Obama, who vouched to decrease the power of lobbyists in Washington, is not turning a deaf ear to this one for now.

Before even considering the implementation of a three-strikes model, United States lawmakers might want to take a good look at what’s happening in France. Unlike earlier projections that up to 95% of the file-sharers could stop downloading copyrighted content, the piracy rate has actually increased in the face of the new law.

The entertainment industry, nevertheless, continues to push legislation as the solution to online piracy, while ignoring their own role in the creation of the problem.

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

The 285,000 member Greek-Fun.com carried around 14,000 links to music, domestic and international movies, software and computers games. Around 5,500 of these are believed to have linked to material in the EPOE repertoire. As is usual with these cases, EPOE were quick to point to the financing of the site as an indication of criminal behavior. Like many sites, Greek-Fun offered benefits to users who donated to keep the site running although the admins denied profiteering.

In the end at least one administrator of the site, believed to be in his early 30’s, was arrested and several people were questioned with investigators linking site email addresses to Facebook accounts for evidence. EPOE said the site caused it 1.8m euros in damages.

As the bad news about Greek-Fun spread, Greece’s largest private tracker – the huge 898,000 member Gamato.info – also unexpectedly went down, officially due to “technical problems”. Whatever the reason, as can be seen by the graph below, the result was a massive drop in Greek Internet traffic. Gamato remained down for several weeks, only opening again during the first few days of February 2010.

Today, however, the site is down again, and the news is not good.

ELAS (Greek police) are engaged in an on-going operation to round up the administrators of the site. Already there are reports of 3 arrests in Athens (the capital and one of the world’s oldest cities) and 3 in Thessaloniki (Greece’s 2nd largest city). A soldier, a musician and a confectioner are among those arrested.

New information suggests that ELAS have alerted Interpol to arrest two further admins who are apparently reside outside the country. TorrentFreak has learned that they are located in The Netherlands and are being called “the brains” behind the site. The Gamato servers are also located there although it’s unclear at this stage if there is a connection.

“We host a lot of different sites and do not keep tabs on our clients as long as they comply with our Terms of Service, which includes confirming to the Dutch law,” Gamato’s host told TorrentFreak, adding: “As far as we and our legal counsel can see, this is the case with the site mentioned by you.”

It’s believed that police are looking for 11 individuals in total. Thus far, 27 hard drives, five laptops and more than 600 DVDs have been seized.

According to the police, file-sharing on Gamato was responsible for 80% of online piracy in Greece, with EPOE calculating its losses at the hands of the tracker at a staggering 1 billion euros.

Although Gamato was a private torrent site, it didn’t follow the usual format. It wasn’t “invite-only” – anyone could signup – and although sharing ratios were counted there were no punishments or rewards for the amounts shared. Furthermore, unlike Greek-Fun, Gamato did not accept donations from users.

The Society for the Protection of Audiovisual Works (EPOE) shot to fame in 2008 when virtually every site offering user-generated Greek subtitles (fansubs) for English language movies and TV shows became recipients of its legal threats. Within a very short time sites including greektvsubs.gr, subtitles.gr, greeksubs, subs4u.gr and apsubs.com had either closed down or removed all subtitles.

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

On 19 December 2006, performing rights group GEMA, which handles the copyrights of more than 1 million rightsholders worldwide, filed for an injunction against UseNeXT. GEMA had earlier leveled accusations at UseNeXT’s advertising in which it said, among other things, the company claimed to offer 1 million MP3s through its service.

“[UseNeXT] advertised its fee-based access with unambiguous references to illegal exchange platforms. In particular it publicized the anonymity, speed and security of access to contents available on Usenet,” GEMA said in a statement, adding: “On top of that, the service also offers special, perfected search software that makes it easier to locate and manage musical works and other contents protected by copyright.”

On 18 January 2007, the Hamburg District Court issued a preliminary injunction against UseNeXT’s operators, which included instructions for it to change the way in which it advertised its product and barring it from providing musical works from GEMA’s repertoire. UseNeXT objected to the decision and disputed that it had ever encouraged subscribers to download copyright works, arguing that its use of the terms ‘unfiltered’ and ‘anonymous’ related to features inherent in the Usenet system.

On 17 February 2010, the Hamburg District Court handed down a preliminary injunction against UseNeXT which bars the service from offering a sample 100 musical works to which GEMA administers the copyright. The injunction also states that UseNeXT must go further than simply modifying its advertising in order to protect GEMA’s copyrights.

Although not necessarily liable for infringements, the Court said that Usenet providers would have to take responsibility for the services and environments they provide.

In a statement, GEMA said that the Court of Hamburg’s decision represents expanded liabilities for Usenet providers which go further than regulating their approach to advertising, but also apply when modified advertising proves insufficient to protect rights holders.

“The adoption of the preliminary injunction is a success in our commitment to the protection of copyright,” said Dr. Harald Heker, Chief Executive Officer of GEMA. “Second, the ruling also represents a further important step towards a comprehensive responsibility of the Usenet service operator for its offer.”

At this stage it’s unclear how UseNeXT will choose to comply with the injunction. Unlike services such as Rapidshare that operate their own servers and actually store content, UseNeXT are a reseller of the Highwinds Usenet service. UseNeXT does not store any content, Highwinds do.

UseNeXT used to offer a search engine and software interface to access Usenet, so conceivably something could’ve been implemented there to bar access to the GEMA titles mentioned in the injunction. However, recent changes to their service means they are no longer offering those solutions but suggesting the use of 3rd party software, with one particular solution from Tangysoft up front.

Nevertheless, the Court said that UseNeXT is responsible for the service it’s re-selling so the company will have to find an answer somehow. Many Usenet providers are already working with rights holders to automate the removal of content, so solutions are available. How quickly and comprehensively UseNeXT acts will remain to be seen.

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

With millions of individuals using BitTorrent and a relative handful using Direct Connect (DC), many wondered why this smaller group were considered worth of police attention. The answer was simple – gathering evidence of mass infringement to be used against those using BitTorrent is a hugely complicated task compared to Direct Connect.

“They can try to download the movie and see a list of people who have the movie. But they can not get a list of everything you download,” explained uTorrent creator Ludvig Strigeus recently. “It is difficult to attack a specific person.”

In common with DC but on a much bigger scale, BitTorrent is not just one network – every single swarm is a new and separate network and the task of monitoring them all is massive.

“There is a huge apparatus needed to keep track on all torrents. I think it’s too hard to manage to do it and then get [the evidence] to hold in the District Court,” adds Strigeus.

Not to say that Sweden and its fledgling anti-piracy taskforce haven’t been busy, though. They just haven’t been getting that many results.

According to a report, in the last 18 months they have reported between 70 and 80 file-sharers to the police. Of those, just 35 to 40 cases were considered worth pursuing. Around 10 of those individuals have been arrested thus far, only 3 have admitted to offenses and agreed to pay fines and there are just 15 cases still under investigated. Needless to say, this is not considered good progress for the time and money invested. Additionally, none of them were BitTorrent users.

While investigators insist that they are looking into new ways of tracking and logging evidence against BitTorrent infringers, anti-piracy group Antipiratbyran (APB) are hoping that the law will help their battle.

APB lawyer Henrik Pontén says the difficulties posed by BitTorrent “…shows the need for other types of intervention from the legislators, if they are serious about copyright law to work on the Internet.”

Pontén is hoping that changes to legislation will allow collecting societies and outfits like the IFPI to start sending copyright infringement warnings directly to those they suspect are sharing files illegally.

“The simplest option is that the victims of copyright crimes are able to send warning letters,” says Pontén.

Currently this is a problem in Sweden, since it is very difficult to obtain the real identity of someone behind an IP address without the assistance of the police. Because of this, Pontén hopes that his group can cooperate with ISPs so that they can forward infringement warnings to file-sharers on their behalf.

“We will not get [the file-sharer's] identity, we just want the warning message to arrive at the correct address. An independent body should be able to send information to the person breaking the law, possibly a government body or a third party organization,” he concludes.

Although this would be a first step, with no sanctions should the warnings be ignored it’s difficult to see how this system would have ‘teeth’. But it’s probably one step at a time for APB – teeth will be bared at a later stage.

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

Dozens of contributing artists waived their rights and performed free of charge to maximize the revenue for Africa. In an attempt to replicate this success, a group of artists recorded “We Are the World 25 for Haiti” following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, hoping to raise money to help those in need.

Although most people realize that donating directly to Doctors Without Borders or the Red Cross is a more efficient way to donate, the initiative was obviously started with the best intentions by most of the people involved. According to the RIAA however, there is also a group of people who deliberately try to “steal” from this fundraising campaign – music pirates.

In a recent blog post the RIAA dramatically claims that “the album is now widely available on illicit BitTorrent sites like The Pirate Bay, Torrentz and more. The posting highlights a truly ugly side of P2P piracy – the undermining of humanitarian fundraising efforts via online theft of the ‘Hope for Haiti Now’ compilation.”

The RIAA basically says that pirates are purposely stealing money from Haitians. But are they?

In a response to the RIAA’s writing, Music Ally dug up some numbers and they found out that compared to most other popular singles the number of downloads the song gets are really low. Aside from this, one has to wonder if those who downloaded the song would have paid for it if it was not available on BitTorrent. Perhaps they already donated through a more direct channel?

Techdirt further notes that the RIAA blames sites like Torrentz which doesn’t even store torrent files, while they leave out Google, the site through which their source actually found the torrents.

What most people missed though, might make the RIAA’s post look even more hypocritical. Charity singles such as “We Are The World” actually bring in a lot of cash for the record industry and related businesses. This could be easily framed as “Stealing from Haitians” as well.

Columbia Records fared well with the release of the first “We Are The World” single and the performance rights that still come in today continue to benefit the “copyright holders.” In addition, charity songs including “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” ended up on thousands of compilation albums for which the charities probably never saw a penny.

We were unable to find out exactly how long the profits of the new Haiti single will actually go to Haiti, but we’re sure that the music industry will take a cut regardless. Similarly, iTunes will give up their share for a few months but will be profiting from the single later on.

These examples show that reality is always a bit more balanced than how the RIAA portrays it. Nonetheless, those who actually like the song should definitely consider buying it or at least donate to one of the other charities that benefit Haiti.

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

However, under the AFACT umbrella, Hollywood lost its most prominent case against ISP iiNet after the court decided that the ISP was not responsible for the infringements of its subscribers.

Despite being ordered to pay all costs, AFACT announced it would not only go back to court in an attempt to avoid paying them, it would also appeal the entire decision, claiming that the judge was wrong on just about every point.

This stubborn attitude hasn’t gone down well, with many observers openly criticizing Hollywood’s bullish stance and insisting it should accept defeat graciously. But of course, that’s not going to happen. After all, what could they do having failed to force ISPs to carry the can? Start suing file-sharers RIAA-style?

Worryingly, an AFACT spokeswoman quoted in a News.com.au article this morning (which has since inexplicably disappeared), said the anti-piracy group now has that armageddon option under consideration. She claimed they are yet to make a final decision.

In the meantime it’s back to the old FUD strategy to try and scare people away from file-sharing networks.

“If you’re using (torrents) (we) can see every movie you want, everyone who is sharing it and everyone who has it on their hard drive,” said the AFACT spokeswoman. “It’s very public what you do and as copyright holders we have a third-party company that is mining all that information and sending it to Internet Service Providers,” she added.

Well that’s not going to scare iiNet customers very much is it?

Nevertheless, AFACT claims there are a number of things ISPs can do to stop piracy, including banning access to torrent sites. Thing is, generally they aren’t, and with this latest iiNet decision there is even less incentive for ISPs to send out warnings or even temporarily suspend accounts, as shown by Exetel which recently reversed its policy.

But there are other ways to encourage reductions in piracy. You don’t have to sue ISPs, spread FUD or imply that suing end users is an option under consideration. Instead of being aggressive towards customers, why not try to pull them onside?

The Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation (IPAF) was created to “promote the value of the industry by raising awareness, understanding and appreciation of intellectual property, and its role and value in society.” In other words, this is a more outwardly friendly anti-piracy group that aims to educate and persuade rather than deal the traditional death-by-lawyer.

Today IPAF announced the appointment of a new CEO, ex-Sony and Fox director Gail Grant who will lead the organization “to motivate a change in public attitude away from piracy” and “encourage supporting the more than 50,000 people employed in all aspects of the industry through the enjoyment of original and legitimate film and television experiences.”

Fair enough. Persuading the public is certainly better than beating them into submission. But there is a problem. While IPAF plays softly-softly with its consumer friendly image, its main sponsors are doing completely the opposite. In case you’re wondering, those sponsors are AFACT and the MPA.

As earlier pointed out by iiNet chief Michael Malone and countless others, the best way to combat piracy is to make movie and TV content available online readily and cheaply. Maybe the studios could get together and create a new group with a CEO dedicated to that, instead of spending money on all of these other good-cop/bad-cop groups with conflicting messages.

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

We’re used to receiving these type of emails – we’ve been having them in one shape or another since Davenport Lyons (DL) started sending them out in 2007, and more recently from recipients of letters from ACS:Law.

Founded in 1841, Tilly Bailey & Irvine (TBI) are a law firm based in the North East of England and from what we’ve seen thus far in respect of this business, their modus operandi appears to have much in common with those of DL and ACS.

On January 27th/28th 2010 in the name of Media & More GmbH & Co, TBI successfully obtained a court order against ISP BT who, as usual (and unlike ISP TalkTalk which refuses to comply with these orders), simply rolled over and complied, handing over the personal details of their customers to TBI in super-quick time and charging £12,500 for the service.

In common with ACS, Tilly Bailey & Irvine are in bed with pornographers.

One outfit confirmed as a client of TBI is Golden Eye (International) Ltd, a company connected with the Ben Dover porn brand in the UK and one that has already been pursuing alleged file-sharers in Germany for the movie “Fancy An Indian – Five Spicy Dishes Covered In A Hot Creamy Sauce.” Media & More GmbH & Co have disputes in Germany with the movie “The Babysitter # 8 Cute Cock Craving Girls!”

Unusually for these type of cases, TBI send their letters by recorded delivery, an expense avoided by DL and ACS. TBI want more money than their counterparts too – £800 – but like Davenport Lyons threaten to enforce the debt against a non-payers property. They also suggest they have criminal remedies open to them which is typical of the usual heavy-handed and disproportionate psychological warfare tactics we’ve come to expect in these cases.

Those who choose to pay up are asked to sign ‘undertakings’ that they will refrain from certain things in future, one of which is to keep the terms of any settlement “secret”.

The claim letters also contain selected pages from a 160 ‘expert report’ created by
Projective Expert Group on behalf of Media Protector GmbH, the company whose ‘FileWatch‘ system was used to capture evidence used in the claim. In all cases we’ve seen thus far the allegations are connected to the eD2K network. The system appears to differ somewhat from those used previously to log alleged BitTorrent infringers and will be dissected in a future article.

TorrentFreak contacted Amanda Mitten, a lawyer in the ‘Intellectual Property Team’ at Tilly Bailey & Irvine dealing with these cases. In addition to asking how many letters the company intends to send out and a request for a list of movie titles to be claimed on, we asked some other key questions, including;

- Will TBI really “commence proceedings” within 14 days if people don’t pay up? [ACS has claimed the same but thus far has taken no-one to court]
- Can we have a full copy of the ‘expert’s report’ on the FileWatch system?
- How will the evidence identify an infringer behind an IP address and not just a bill payer? How does TBI justify claiming against a bill payer when they’re not certain he or she is an infringer?
- How do those accused go about proving a negative, i.e they didn’t carry out the infringement TBI claim they did? [this point was raised by the Lords recently]
- The letters being sent out by TBI are similar to those sent out by ACS and very, very similar to those sent out by Davenport Lyons. We earlier asked ACS if they were connected to DL – they said “NO”, but that wasn’t exactly true. We asked TBI if they are in anyway connected to either ACS or DL.
- Taking into consideration that when operating almost identical schemes both ACS:Law and Davenport Lyons became the subject of SRA investigations, coupled with the Lords labeling this type of scheme “legal blackmail“, are Tilly Bailey & Irvine concerned about tarnishing their hard-earned reputation?

After emails back and forth, mostly spent talking about TorrentFreak and the nature of this website, Tilly Bailey & Irvine refused to answer any of our questions.

Nevertheless, as expected their activities haven’t gone unnoticed and are already the subject of discussion by the Lords in the Digital Economy Bill debate, with Tilly Bailey & Irvine being mentioned by name yesterday. Lord Clement Jones labeled them, ACS:Law and the Logistep data-gathering outfit “an embarrassment to the rest of the creative rights industry.”

Baroness Howe of Idlicote said that the problem “has to be dealt with and is disgraceful,” adding, “If these firms really are law firms, they are bringing their whole profession into disrepute.”

Lord Lucas gave a very accurate overview of the schemes noting that they “must not be allowed to continue.” His contribution is detailed in its entirety over on our sister site, FreakBits.com.

We will follow this post up in due course with a closer look at the companies, people and tracking system involved in this business model, so if you have any information and would like to contribute (German contributors and eD2k specialists especially welcome), please contact us in the usual manner.

Worried letter recipients can visit BeingThreatened for more advice.

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

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.

Thanks

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

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.

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.

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.

The owners of these streaming sites tend to be very cooperative and assist in taking down copyrighted material when they’re asked to. In fact, the owners of several popular streaming sites have recently launched a system through which the porn studios can protect their entire catalogs for free.

The system named COP-CMS creates unique fingerprints for each of their videos. It then checks all current videos on the participating “tube” sites and removes any matches it finds and prevents the video from being uploaded in the future.

“We believe we have one the most robust systems available. Videos can be matched even if they’re blurred, resized, rotated or have sections removed. Our system is accurate enough to detect a video from just 1 second of footage,” TorrentFreak was told by David, one of the people behind the COP-CMS system.

The innovative anti-piracy solution was picked up by XBIZ, one of the leading adult news outlets, and is already in use by several porn studios. However, not all studios were equally happy about this free anti-piracy service offered by the ‘pirate’ tube sites, possibly because it directly competes with their own solution.

In the forum thread discussing the XBIZ article on the COP-CMS system, several studio representatives vent their concerns. The overall opinion seems to be that these “scoundrel thieves” don’t deserve the coverage, and not too long after the article was posted the head of leading porn studio TitanMedia replied that “It’s been taken care of…”

Indeed, the article on XBIZ was pulled from the site. “We rang xbiz.com and spoke to the editor who said they had been contacted by someone about us and now the article is “dead in the water,” Steve told TorrentFreak, adding that he never got an explanation why.

Coincidentally, the Free Speech Coalition (FSC), the trade association for the adult entertainment industry announced it’s very own anti-piracy solution on XBIZ a day later. Could it be that this upcoming competitor was one of the reasons why the other article was pulled?

If we take a look at the directors of the FSC we see that they are made up of a TitanMedia lawyer, the founder of XBIZ and the Senior Editor from AVN news. Something smells fishy here, to say the least.

Meanwhile, COP-CMS continues its free service and is currently working with several studios that are not members of FSC. On the other hand, the Free Speech Coalition might have to rethink whether or not it should change its name after this alleged gagging escapade.

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

“Forum administrators are not responsible for content written by users. The files placed here by users are only for promotional purposes. After 24 hours you must delete all files downloaded from this forum,” said the disclaimer on the front page of the site before it disappeared.

Polish police and the Foundation for the Protection of Audiovisual Creativity (FOTA) anti-piracy group clearly didn’t think the disclaimer counted for much, and on February 12th conducted raids against the site’s operators.

During the raid last Friday, police say they arrested three individuals on suspicion of running the site – a 21 year-old computer science student and two teenagers aged 16 and 17 – and also conducted searches on site members in three other locations.

Equipment was seized including 6 computers and 150 DVDs and CDs which allegedly contained copyright infringing content.

After lengthy questioning the 21 and 17 year-olds were released and now face copyright infringement charges which carry a maximum 5 year prison sentence in Poland. The 16 year-old, who was reported yesterday as still being detained, will be dealt with by the family courts.

The police, who are still to officially confirm the name of the site, say that “streaming movies” were also available via the forum and that those arrested benefited financially from operating the site as they collected revenue from advertising.

They add that the collected evidence is being examined by experts in order to assess the level of damages suffered by the creators of the films and music whose work was linked to by the site.

Anti-piracy group FOTA, which awards the police with “Golden Plate” accolades for carrying out piracy crackdowns on their behalf, will undoubtedly be pleased with this result.

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