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Archive for the ‘P2P file sharing’ Category

Post from: TorrentFreak

Danish ISPs Reject Anti-Piracy Proposals: “

Danish ISPs have rejected proposals from the IFPI for a ‘3-strikes and you’re out’ policy to deal with illicit file-sharers. In a joint statement, the telecoms companies said that they would not be a part of ‘detection and monitoring’ activities and that the solution to piracy should come from elsewhere.

Efforts to reach a voluntary agreement between the IFPI and ISPs in Denmark on the issue of unauthorized file-sharing have failed. The telecoms companies have completely rejected the demands of the music industry.

The IFPI wanted to be able to hunt down file-sharers, report them to their ISP and have them implement a so-called ‘3 strikes’ policy. They proposed that the first time someone got caught sharing copyrighted files, they would receive a warning from the ISP, the second time they would have their Internet connection slowed down. After a third warning, or strike, the user would be disconnected from his ISP and banished from the Internet.

ISPs in the UK recently reached an agreement with the IFPI to send out warnings to alleged file-sharers, but rejected any further sanctions against their customers such as speed capping or disconnection. However, according to a Comon report, the Danish ISPs have rejected the proposals completely. They say they will not take part in ‘detection and monitoring activities’ and believe that the proposals would constitute a contravention of the law, and would upset the balance between the interests of the individual and economic interests.

‘The Internet must be protected as a credible media, where each citizen can feel comfortable with the certainty that he will be on an equal footing with other media, such as confidentiality of correspondence in the mail, etc,’ said the statement. ‘The proposals that have been seen by others in the European debate, which have also been raised in Denmark - for example, to disconnect users or deny users Internet access - will counteract this objective, and is in no way proportionate to the situation.’

President of the Telecommunications Industry Association Jens Ottosen says the plan presented by the IFPI to the Ministry of Culture has a number of serious weaknesses. He believes that the rights holders cannot accurately identify people who are engaged in unauthorized file-sharing. Among other things, the IFPI model of warning/slowing/disconnecting an IP address, NOT a person, means that even if the owner of an Internet connection did nothing wrong, they would be the one who got punished. Those who are the victim of a wireless hacking are equally vulnerable, something which the ISPs aren’t prepared to accept, and neither are the courts.

‘We are very divided,’ said Ottosen. When asked if there is a chance of reaching any type of voluntary agreement with the music industry, he added, ‘I can’t imagine.’

Thanks to Peter_Pan

(Via TorrentFreak.)

Post from: TorrentFreak

Football Fans Eye World Cup Piracy Options: “

Last week, football fans in the UK were disappointed after satellite broadcaster Setanta failed to reach a deal with free-to-air terrestrial channels to show England’s World Cup qualifier against Croatia. Of course, availability isn’t something that affects those wishing to view the match via unauthorized sources.

Years ago, football fans (that’s soccer to our US readers) in England were pretty much guaranteed to be able to watch their national team play live. With just a handful of terrestrial channels available, anyone with a TV set could see the matches on BBC or its rival, ITV. Now with satellite subscription channels snapping up the rights to matches, the potential audience is shrinking, from pretty much everyone in the country down to just a few million.

Currently, Irish pay-TV broadcaster Setanta has the rights to broadcast live matches to its 4 million subscribers, of which a maximum of 1.5 million watch the matches, such as England’s World Cup qualifier with Croatia last week. Terrestrial channels, available to most in the UK, have to strike a deal with Setanta to get the match highlights to show to their viewers after the live match has finished. Last week, they failed to reach a deal which meant that football-mad England fans who wanted to view on terrestrial TV were unable to watch their own national team.

In the end, a deal was struck with the ITV network to show match highlights the next day, but by which time everyone knew that England had won 4-1 and although most fans were pleased, all the surprises were ruined. However, those prepared to pirate their favorite sport managed to cut through the satellite/terrestrial split and all the boardroom and financial politics at the click of a mouse.

The majority of the pirates got their England vs Croatia fix from streaming services. Most of them are easy to view with a software client but other streams can be viewed directly in a regular web browser, and there appears to be no shortage to choose from. Ok, the picture quality might not be all that and the commentary might be in Chinese on some streams but since the matches can be heard live on national radio, understandable commentary is accessible, if out of sync.

A much smaller number, around 15,000, downloaded the full match via BitTorrent, which ordinarily would only be available via a subscription to Setanta. Even if a deal had been struck with terrestrial channels, only the highlights would have been available to the masses. But of course, pirates don’t care about subscriptions or the reasons why companies fail to make a deal to enable fans to watch their national team participate in their national sport. They want media and they want it now - and they get it too, either for free via Internet piracy, or at a discount via other less obvious gray-area sources.

The message to media companies is simple - provide wide access to media at a reasonable price and no fuss, and the majority (who can afford it) will be happy to pay. Start aggressively restricting things that people love - like watching football - and then fail to reach agreements to let the fans have even a diluted version in a timely organized fashion, and you’re asking for trouble. Once people start pirating and realize just how much easier, convenient and cheaper it is, it will be hard to get them back, especially once BitTorrent and streaming media devices start to be found in the average living room.

British police bring fraud and copyright charges over file-sharing service: “The man police believe was behind the OiNK music file-sharing service has been charged with conspiracy to defraud. Four other people have been charged with criminal copyright infringement over OiNK activity.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Groups Urge Senate Not To Turn The Justice Department Into Hollywood’s Private Police Force: “As we noted earlier this summer, Senator Patrick Leahy had introduced a companion bill to the House’s dreadful Pro-IP bill, except that Leahy’s bill went further. Beyond just adding a ‘Copyright Czar’ position to the White House, it would authorize the Justice Department to start prosecuting civil copyright infringement lawsuits. In other words, it would have the government act as the private police for of the entertainment industry. This is scary stuff. Beyond already handing out unnecessary gov’t granted monopolies, the gov’t would now be using taxpayer money to settle business disputes from an industry that was only in trouble because it stubbornly refused to update its business model.

It’s difficult to see why taxpayers should be paying FBI agents to protect one industry’s obsolete business model.

A bunch of special interest groups made that argument to Senators this week, noting that it was a pure gift to Hollywood — pointing out that all of the companies and groups in the industry already have their own enforcement arms, and it made little sense to have the FBI take part in private business disputes. Hopefully, there are still enough Senators who haven’t been convinced by the propaganda provided by the entertainment industry on this issue to recognize what’s actually at stake here.

(Via Techdirt.)

(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.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Anti-Piracy Scam Emails Target BitTorrent Users: “

A new trend is surfacing, as spammers have sent out millions of emails targeting BitTorrent users. The emails that claim to come from MediaDefender, warn the receiver that he or she has been logged using BitTorrent and points them to an attachment supposedly containing evidence, but which is in fact infected with a virus.

Over the years BitTorrent has attracted some shady figures. We’ve reported on malware ridden BitTorrent clients and media players, a BitTorrent site that infects its users with spyware, and several other scams.

Although most scams can be avoided easily when a few simple rules are followed, they still manage to trick thousands of novices every day - and this is not going to end anytime soon. Since BitTorrent has become more or less mainstream, with millions of users worldwide, it also proves an interesting target for email spammers.

The latest scam, unlike the others we have reported on before, is one that is sent by email. The email is disguised as a message from the anti-piracy company MediaDefender (using their logo etc.), and warns the recipient that his or her download behavior has been logged. The email has a report attached with more details about the infringed material, which turns out to be a virus.

Dear User!

Your recent internet activity was logged on the following sites:

* Btjunkie
* SumoTorrent
* isoHunt
* Btscene
* Mininova
* Fenopy
* Monova
* Yotoshi
* GetInvites
* Btmon

We have attached a report about the copyrighted movies, music, softwares you
downloaded or searched on these webpages. We strongly advise you to stop any
future activities regarding the downloading of illegal content or you can
expect prosecution by 17 U.S.C. §§ 512, 1201?1205, 1301?1332; 28 U.S.C. §
4001 laws.

Sincerely,

MediaDefender Inc.

To the more experienced and BitTorrent savvy users it is clear that the email is a scam. First of all, MediaDefender has never been involved in anti-piracy enforcement. The only thing they do is spoofing, flood BitTorrent sites with fake files, and the occasional DDoS attack on Revision3.

In addition, the email claims to have data on what the user searched for on the sites, which is irrelevant and practically impossible. It seems that the spammers should have done some more research on the topic. A good spammer would have included The Pirate Bay in the list of sites instead of Getinvites, which is a BitTorrent invite trading site, and not a search engine

A related scam email, sent out by the same group of people judging by the style and format, is also targeted at filesharers and threatens to suspend their Internet connection. The email claims to be sent by the Internet service provider consortium, and again includes an infected attachment with a report.

The email is a clever scam that shows how mainstream BitTorrent has become. The emails are sent out randomly, but many recipients, scared by be cut off by their ISP, or sued for downloading copyrighted material, might open the infected attachment without realizing that it is a scam.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Furious Author Cancels Pirated Book: “

Writer Stephanie Meyer isn’t too happy with the Internet. The first 12 chapters of her eagerly awaited book, a counter-view novel to Twilight, has hit file sharing sites. Despite knowing who was responsible, Meyer’s anger seems only to be for her Internet fans, while she plans to cancel the book.

This year we’ve reported on several book authors who embraced the Internet, and BitTorrent in particular. Having pirated copies of their books listed on BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay is considered to be an honor to some. They use it as a promotional tool, and actually sell more books because of it.

One of the prime examples is best-selling author Paulo Coelho, who said he sold thousands of extra books because of he pirated his own books. ‘Sharing is part of the human condition. A person who does not share is not only selfish, but bitter and alone,’ Coelho told TorrentFreak in a follow up interview, explaining why he decided to share his books for free.

Responses to unauthorized filesharing vary. Those that have embraced it have seen dividends. Others fight it and throw tantrums, or use it as an excuse. A prime example of the last category has emerged, in the form of author Stephanie Meyer. Meyer, best known for her recent hits based around vampires, caters to the ‘young adult’ market re-popularized by the Harry Potter books.

In what seems like an echo of what happened to Potter author Rowling, Meyer’s latest book, Midnight Sun, has leaked online. Not the entire book, but a major part of the first draft, comprising the first 12 chapters. Meyer says the source is known to her. In a statement on her website, she says

‘I have a good idea of how the leak happened as there were very few copies of Midnight Sun that left my possession and each was unique. Due to little changes I made to the manuscript at different times, I can tell when each left my possession and to whom it was given. The manuscript that was illegally distributed on the Internet was given to trusted individuals for a good purpose. I have no comment beyond that as I believe that there was no malicious intent with the initial distribution.’

Instead of rolling with it, working on reader feedback, and moving on and forward, Meyer is ‘throwing in the towel’ on the book for now, putting it ‘on hold indefinitely’. However, as was reminiscent of the buckcherry debacle, it smells of contrived events. A June update to her site said that she was working on it, partly due to fan pressure.

A leak that makes her so frustrated to want to write the book in the opposite way from intended, shouldn’t at the same time leave her ambivalent to the person and actions that caused it. It certainly shouldn’t leave her attacking her fans with statements such as:

‘Just because someone buys a book or movie or song, or gets a download off the Internet, doesn’t mean that they own the right to reproduce and distribute it. Unfortunately, with the Internet, it is easy for people to obtain and share items that do not legally belong to them. No matter how this is done, it is still dishonest. This has been a very upsetting experience for me, but I hope it will at least leave my fans with a better understanding of copyright and the importance of artistic control.’

Yet again, P2P is blamed for ‘ruining’ something, and this will no doubt be added to the big list of ‘reasons filesharing should be dealt with more harshly’ that the governments of the world get hit around the head with (paid/lobbied/bribed).

File Sharing Lawsuits at Crossroads, After 5 Years of Litigation: “Five years ago, the Recording Industry Association of America began a massive litigation campaign against file sharers. More than 30,000 lawsuits later, many are questioning the campaign’s effectiveness. All the while, basic legal questions, like what proof is necessary to prove copyright infringement, remain unanswered.

(Via Wired News.)

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

ISPs Hand Over Details of ‘Several Thousand’ Pirates: “

Two major UK ISPs have been ordered by the High Court to hand over the identities of several thousand alleged file-sharers. BT has confirmed it is involved while Virgin Media was less direct in admitting that lawyers Davenport Lyons, working with Topwear Inc., are about to start threatening thousands more people.

US game developer Topware Interactive, the people behind the now infamous ‘Dream Pinball‘ affair, are about to turn up the heat. Operating through London lawyers Davenport Lyons, they have managed to convince the High Court to send out an order demanding that ISPs in the UK start to hand over the details of ‘several thousand’ alleged pirates.

According to Samknows, BT, one of the UK’s largest ISPs and like many, currently caught up in the middle of a Davenport Lyons versus P2P battle, confirmed it had been ordered to hand over details of alleged copyright infringing file-sharers. It could not confirm whether they had already handed over the details or not. However, BT was surprised at the ‘strong arm’ tactics being employed by the games industry, in contrast to the fairly civilized warnings currently touted by the BPI, which were toned-down under duress.

‘It does seem a much more strong arm approach compared to the music industry,’ said the BT spokesman. ‘However, it is only one company pursuing a limited number of miscreants at the moment. I doubt the music industry will follow suit as the potential numbers are too great, but who knows.’

Virgin Media was a little more slippery in its response but reading between the lines it seems obvious they are involved too. While noting that they take the privacy of their customers very seriously, if faced with a court order to hand over names and addresses, they simply have to comply. Virgin Media also indicated that it prefers the ‘educational’ approach, i.e the compromise reached between ISPs and the BPI recently. Virgin media spokesman told Samknows:

‘We certainly prefer the education route we pioneered with the BPI because you can’t assume people are guilty of anything, so we don’t, we let them know of what might have happened and give information on how to ensure they enjoy legal downloads. This would definitely seem to be a very different approach from a different industry.’

I’m sure it’s just a slip by the Virgin spokesman but the entire ‘games industry’ isn’t taking this aggressive approach against alleged file-sharers. It is actually just Topware Interactive, and in the other active cases, Atari, Codemasters, Techland and Reality Pump, just a handful of developers.

As a gamer of more than 25 years I agree with the boss of EA Sports, Peter Moore, that it’s not particularly clever to start taking legal action against your customers. In a superb article, Rob Fahey over at GamesIndustry.biz says that he believes the losses claimed by the industry are a ‘complete crock‘ and he’s not on his own.

In any event, if you take a look at the games being ‘protected’ in these actions, with the possible exception of Codemasters titles, they’re mostly second rate and didn’t sell many anyway. The developers would have everyone believe this is due to file-sharing but people know otherwise. The suspicion in the file-sharing community is that this isn’t about protection of copyright at all, but a way to make poor games pay. Any revenue stream in a storm, eh?