CyberLaw Blog

Archive for the ‘Bittorent’ Category

Post from: TorrentFreak

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China Hijacks Popular BitTorrent Sites: “

China is not new to censoring the Internet, but up until now, BitTorrent sites have never been blocked. Recently however, several reports came in from China, indicating that popular BitTorrent sites such as Mininova, isoHunt and The Pirate Bay had been hijacked. The sites became inaccessible, instead redirecting to the leading Chinese search engine Baidu.

Just a week ago, reports came in that China had started to ban 10 video hosting sites, allegedly because of ‘regulations violations’. Other sites, including China’s largest eDonkey indexing site, VeryCD, received warnings. A few days later, however, VeryCD users found that their favorite eDonkey site was redirected to the Chinese search engine - Baidu.com.

It soon became apparent that VeryCD was not the only P2P website to be hijacked. A host of BitTorrent sites, including Mininova, isoHunt and The Pirate Bay were also affected. People in the Beijing area who attempted to access the sites were promptly redirecting to Baidu, China’s Google.

The domain hijacks continued for more than two days straight, but were lifted yesterday. According to some sources, there was never an attempt to censor the BitTorrent sites, claiming that a DNS error cause the problems. This doesn’t seem very plausible though, as the diversions almost exclusively involved P2P related sites, which are hosted right across the globe. Also, DNS issues can’t explain why all the P2P sites were suddenly redirected to another website.

Mininova co-founder Niek, whose domain was also redirected to Baidu told TorrentFreak: ‘We had the questionable honor of joining Wikipedia and YouTube on the list of websites that (at some point) were censored in China. Fortunately the people in charge made the right decision, and realized that blocking a search engine like Mininova wasn’t such a good idea.’

‘I’m happy to see that the block is removed now, though it would be nice to talk to the people who made this decision so we can understand their motives,’ Niek added. The true reason behind the hijack attempt will probably never come to light. Most importantly, the ‘problems’ are resolved now, and all BitTorrent sites are accessible again.

Post from: TorrentFreak

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TorrentValley Raided and Shut Down: “

TorrentValley, one of the larger BitTorrent sites with millions of visitors each month, has been shut down by Bulgarian authorities. The site’s servers were seized by a Cyber Crime Unit, which acted based upon evidence provided by the Bulgarian music industry.

In 2007, TorrentFreak featured TorrentValley in a roundup article on lesser known BitTorrent sites. In the months after, the site continued its growth and became one of the larger BitTorrent directories.

The site’s success didn’t last, however, as Bulgarian authorities have just shut down the site after being tipped off by the Bulgarian Association of Musical Producers (BAMP), a music industry lobby group.

This case is again a prime example how the music industry and law enforcement agencies work together seamlessly. Investigators from the music industry handed over ‘evidence’ to the Bulgarian authorities, who went on to raid the site in question. Justice is meant to be blind, but it clearly isn’t in this case.

This case is not unique in this regard. IFPI, an anti-piracy lobby group for the music industry has helped gathering evidence against OiNK as well, claiming it was a criminal operation where hundreds and thousands of dollars were made. More recently IFPI was involved in the Italian Pirate Bay blockade, where they assisted the local authorities, and hosted the server where the takedown notice was hosted.

As we’ve pointed out before, in most police investigations, if a police officer is directly involved in a crime, he or she is usually unable to participate in the investigation, as being involved reduces that person’s objectivity. Justice is meant to be blind, not fueled by thoughts of personal redemption or vengeance. It is unfortunate that most authorities seem to be unaware of this principle.

This is not the first time Bulgarian authorities have gone after a BitTorrent site. In 2006, the administrator of Arenabg.com, the largest BitTorrent tracker in the country, was arrested by the police. The admin was later released due to ‘lack of grounds for his arrest’, but the government ordered an IP-block of the site nevertheless, which led to massive protests.

TorrentValley didn’t have the large fanbase Arenabg.com had, so protests are not to be expected this time. At this point it is also unclear if action has been taken against the administrator of the site.

EUobserver: Commission backs internet users over content providers

LEIGH PHILLIPS, 09.10.2008 @ 18:16 CET

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Parliament’s rejection of a proposed “three strikes” law - that would see internet users have their connection cut off if they have been found to repeatedly violate copyright - must be respected, the commission said at an EUobserver-organised conference on internet rights.
(more…)

Post from: TorrentFreak

Court Deems Pirate Bay Block to be Illegal: “

This August The Pirate Bay was ‘censored’ in Italy following a decree from a public prosecutor. The Pirate Bay appealed the block and eventually won the court case. Earlier this week the Court of Bergamo detailed its decision, and ruled that no foreign website can be censored for alleged copyright infringement.

Two months ago, following an order from an Italian prosecutor, ISPs started to prevent their customers from accessing the Pirate Bay. The administrators of the popular BitTorrent tracker were accused of making copyrighted material available on the Internet for commercial purposes.

Of course, the Pirate Bay team didn’t agree, and responded in true Pirate Bay style. ‘We’re quite used to fascist countries not allowing freedom of speech. A lot of smaller nations that have dictators decide to block our site since we can help spread information that could be harmful to the dictators,’ Sunde wrote in a blog entry.

The BitTorrent tracker was not going down without a fight, and later announced that it would appeal the decision in court, which they won. The block was lifted and ISPs could again grant their users access to the most frequently used BitTorrent tracker on the Internet.

The Court of Bergamo decided that this block was unlawful, and earlier this week they explained why. According to the court statement (Italian), no criminal court is allowed to issue an order to ISPs to block traffic to a foreign website, based on alleged copyright infringement. Italian law implements an European Directive, 2000/31 CE, which this means that this ruling should be valid in other European countries as well.

‘Under Italian law, this is possible only for child porn and for unauthorized gambling, but there is no such provision for copyright infringement,’ Pirate Bay’s lawyers Giovanni Battista Gallus and Francesco Micozzi explained to TorrentFreak.

‘We have to make sure that no legislative bill promoting such filtering provisions will be passed in the future. At the European level, many authorities pointed out the need to find a balance between the enforcement of alleged copyright infringements, users’ rights, and privacy issues.’

In hindsight, the block only helped the Pirate Bay to grow even further. The case generated a lot of free promotion, and the number of visitors from Italy increased by 5 percent. Not exactly the outcome IFPI had hoped for.

(Via TorrentFreak.)

Post from: TorrentFreak

Pirate Bay Wins Court Case, Italian Block Lifted: “

The Pirate Bay has successfully appealed the decision of an Italian judge who had ordered ISPs to block access to the popular BitTorrent tracker last month. The Court of Bergamo decided that this block was unlawful, and that Italian users should regain access to the site.

This August, out of nowhere, The Pirate Bay was ‘censored’ in Italy following a decree from a public prosecutor. The block didn’t prove to be particularly effective, as traffic from Italy only increased. Nevertheless, The Pirate Bay was determined to reverse the decision, and in that mission they have succeeded.

The Court of Bergamo has now lifted the block, and ISPs are again allowed to grant their users access to the most frequently used BitTorrent tracker on the Internet. More details on the decision, and the reason why the block was reversed, will be made public later.

In a previous interview, Pirate Bay’s lawyers Giovanni Battista Gallus and Francesco Micozzi described the order as ‘‘original’ or ‘creative’ at best,’ and said it should not have been ordered in the first place because of the lack of jurisdiction. In addition, they argued that The Pirate Bay is not breaking any laws since it’s not distributing copyright infringing material.

The court’s decision might set an important precedent for BitTorrent sites in Italy, especially for Colombo-BT, the largest Italian torrent site, which was shut down by the same prosecutor responsible for the Pirate Bay block. The action against Colombo-BT was orchestrated by the anti-piracy outlet IFPI, which also hijacked all Italian Pirate Bay visitors following the block.

Visitors who were blocked from The Pirate Bay were redirected to an IFPI server, instead of a server operated by the Italian government. This is again an example of how lobby groups such as the IFPI, MPAA and RIAA are treated as government institutions. Since many Pirate Bay visitors claimed their privacy was violated, the Italian Pirate Party and Altroconsumo filed a complaint with the ombudsman earlier this week.

Post from: TorrentFreak

‘Heroes’ Causes BitTorrent Boom: “

Two fresh episodes of the US hit series ‘Heroes’ were released Monday night. In the day that followed each episode was downloaded well over a million times by BitTorrent users all over the world, making it the busiest day ever on many torrent sites.

An example of the BitTorrent traffic boost was reported yesterday, as Mininova got 10 million downloads in a single day. A record breaking figure, in part thanks to the debut of ‘Heroes’ and several other shows.

It’s Heroes that breaks all the records though. Our statistics show that, across all BitTorrent sites, the two episodes from Heroes’ season opening were downloaded well over a million times each - in just one day. The vast majority of the downloads come from outside the US (92%), where shows usually air weeks or even months later.

The show was downloaded the most in the UK (15%), where the official season opening is scheduled for October 1st. Canada, France and Australia complete the top 5. Although most TV-broadcasters won’t be happy to read these figures, one could argue that BitTorrent has actually helped TV-shows to build a stronger, broader, and more involved fanbase.

Jesse Alexander, the executive producer of ‘Heroes’ told TorrentFreak that he thinks this is indeed the case. ‘People watching shows such as Lost and Heroes on BitTorrent is the present world reality. TV networks have to recognize this, give their viewers more ways to interact with the shows, and find ways to generate revenue from every member of the global audience,’ he said.

Let’s hope Alexander will be heard in Hollywood. Below is the TV-show download chart of the past week, Heroes is not included in the list, but it will surely appear in next week’s chart.

Top Downloads September 14 - September 21

(Via TorrentFreak.)

Europe Gets Prison Break Fix via BitTorrent: “

Last week the fourth season of Prison Break aired in the US with over 6 million viewers on TV. On BitTorrent the season premiere was downloaded more than 2 million times this week. The majority of the downloads go to Europe though. Poland alone is responsible for 12%, compared to only 4% US downloads.

Last week we reported that the season premiere of Fox’s Prison Break was downloaded more than a million times just a day after it was aired on TV. Fox, which offers a free and legit Prison Break stream on Fox.com for US viewers, thinks that most downloads come from overseas, where the episodes haven’t aired yet, let alone that it can be streamed online.

It turns out that Fox’s assumption is right. We decided to look into the download locations of one of the most popular Prison Break torrents and found that, based on a sample of more than 250,000 downloads, most downloaders are located in Europe.

In our sample, which represents approximately 10% of the total downloads this week, the show was most downloaded in Poland (12%). UK and France were in second and third place respectively, followed by Canada and The Netherlands. The US was sixth in the list with only 4% of the total downloads, and Greece, Spain, Australia and Brazil complete the top 10.

As we have said before, availability seems to the key issue why people turn to BitTorrent. Non-US Prison Break fans sometimes have to wait for weeks or even months before the show airs on TV in their country, and many of them are not that patient, or willing to torture themselves. Until this problem is addressed, we’re not likely to see a decrease in TV-show downloads from BitTorrent.

The 4% US downloaders that preferred to get the show via BitTorrent instead of streaming it online probably did so because they wanted to watch it on their TV or get a higher quality copy - streaming isn’t all that. Both Fox and Hulu, the two sites that offer Prison Break streams have not published any numbers, so it’s hard to compare the number of US downloaders (~100.000) with the US streamers.

We do have a new TV-torrent download chart, with plenty of newcomers. So, let’s take a look at the 10 most downloaded shows this week. The data for the weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only.

Top Downloads August 31 - September 07

(Via TorrentFreak.)

BitTorrent Tracker Admin Jailed for 18 Months: “

The fallout from the FBI raid on EliteTorrents in 2005 continues. Today, 26 year-old Daniel Dove has been sentenced to 18 months in prison and a $20,000 fine for the work he put in on the private BitTorrent tracker Elitetorrents.

During 2005, Federal Agents assisted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), first infiltrated and then shutdown EliteTorrents, a BitTorrent tracker with more than 130,000 members. In a May they took down the server and left this message, which was viewed more than 500,000 times in the week following the raid.

Daniel Dove, one of the arrested administrators of the Elitetorrents tracker initially opted for a ‘not guilty’ plea, but his gamble didn’t pay off. The jury was told that Dove was responsible for managing and recruiting the crucial ‘uploaders’ on the site (original seeders) and that he also operated a server which was used to distribute pirate material.

The jury believed this version of events and found Dove guilty on one count each of conspiracy and felony copyright infringement. Today, Dove has was sentenced to 18 months in prison, three years of supervised release and a $20,000 fine.

Dove is the only administrator of Elitetorrents to plead ‘not guilty’. In 2006, Scott McCausland pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and one count of criminal copyright infringement for his uploading of Star Wars: Episode III.

McCausland received jail time and home confinement and on his release told TorrentFreak: ‘After 5 months in prison, and another 5 months on home confinement, I have just one obstacle left: my 1.5 years left of probation.’

Fellow site admin Grant Stanley, then aged 23, pleaded guilty to the same offenses as Scott and received the same sentence with the addition of a $3,000 fine. Other admins and uploaders who pleaded guilty include Sam Kuonen, then aged 24, 22 year old Scott D. Harvanek and An Duc Do, aged 25.

Dove’s sentence is the eighth resulting from Operation D-Elite but this federal crackdown didn’t end up causing a decrease in overall private BitTorrent tracker availability. Instead, soon after the raids the Elitetorrents members spread out to other trackers, the major difference is that most of them are now hosted outside the US.