The law will make it easier for copyright holders to get a court order in order to force ISPs to release the customer info linked to a suspect IP-address. The Local reports that, although the law is based on a EU directive, the current draft goes further than that.

In order to obtain the personal details, copyright holders will have to prove that there is “probable cause” that a person, or rather an IP-address, has actually shared copyrighted material with others. With the current state of evidence gathering, where mistakes and false accusations are fairly common, this may not be that easy to achieve.

The many unsecured Wireless routers complicate the evidence gathering even further, and BitTorrent trackers have also implemented countermeasures of their own. Earlier this week we reported that the Pirate Bay tracker software automatically inserts several “random IP addresses” that are not actually downloading data. This is done on purpose, to pollute the evidence gathering of anti-piracy outfits.

The new law is also heavily opposed by Swedish Pirate Party Chairman Rick Falkvinge who told TorrentFreak: “These laws are written by digital illiterates who behave like blindfolded, drunken elephants trumpeting about in an egg packaging facility. They have no idea how much damage they’re causing, because they lack today’s literacy: an understanding of how the Internet is reshaping the power structures at their core.”

“We have good hope of putting an end to these ridiculous developments. Either the existing politicians start to understand what they’re actually doing at work all day, or they will escalate the conflict to the point where we’re replacing them in office. Either way, copyright will be scaled back,” Falkvinge added.

It is to be expected that opposition against the new anti-piracy law will be great, similar to the public outrage when Sweden introduced a wiretapping law earlier this year, and after the raid on The Pirate Bay in 2006. It wouldn’t surprise us if The Pirate Bay fights this battle at the front, clashing with local politicians and media once again.

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Sweden to Introduce Controversial Anti-Piracy Law torrent downloads.

The methods universities use to reduce piracy on their networks have been scrutinized in our ‘Tackling College Piracy’ series. Most of them have been found to be technologically ineffective, working only at the psychological level. The main problem with the “technological approach” is that it’s impossible to distinguish authorized from unauthorized network traffic. Nonetheless, these anti-piracy efforts are quite expensive.

First of all, the amount of time spent dealing with allegations of infringement are huge, according to the study by the Campus Community Project. IT personnel alone spend a mean time of 750 hours at public universities, while private university IT personnel spend around 620 hours a year on this. The shorter time for private institutions generally comes about because of their smaller size, and so smaller search size, and less frequent notifications.

Overall, the costs that come with them are larger than most would expect. It was concluded that between $350,000 and $500,000 is spent annually per institution - directly and indirectly - dealing with copyright infringement notices. The quality of US education has already been questioned (most recently by US presidential candidate Barack Obama in the 3rd Presidential Debate), especially in contrast to the high cost of it. In this light, the costs incurred dealing with copyright infringements are nonsensical.

The study reports that 25% of public universities use a form of technological filtering, such as Copysense, to try and reduce infringements. As noted before, such measures are fairly inaccurate and rarely work. Less common are educational methods, which may be linked with p2p access, as at Missouri S&T. However, most universities and colleges simply disconnect pirating students from the network, and make them promise to never do it again when they want to get back on. Financial penalties are also given, but this is not yet commonplace. We will deal with this in an upcoming piece.

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Tackling College Piracy: At What Cost? torrent downloads.

As far as anti-piracy headlines go, the IFPI would prefer those coming from Denmark recently to be kept as quiet as possible. Back in September, Danish ISPs rejected the IFPI “3 strikes” proposals and then the anti-piracy group lost two court cases where alleged file-sharers used the so-called ‘wireless defense’.

This week, however, the IFPI and Danish Antipiratgruppen achieved a small victory in the case of a middle-aged man from Aalborg who used Direct Connect (DC) to share around 13,000 music files in 2005.

According to a Comon.dk report, the IFPI/Antipiratgruppen tracked activity which it linked to an IP address registered to the man. Obviously - as in all such cases - it was not possible to positively identify the person at the keyboard simply via the IP address, but the man made some admissions in what appears to be a generally weak defense, and these seem to help seal his fate.

Having previously lost his case in the district court, the man appealed and the case went to the Vestre Landsret, one of Denmark’s highest courts.

The defendant claimed that he couldn’t figure out how to use Direct Connect but admitted visiting the software’s homepage, albeit on an old PC which dated back to the mid 1990’s. It was also made clear in court that the man did not operate any type of wireless network, eliminating a defense which proved successful in other cases.

The ruling from the Vestre Landsret which was announced yesterday morning, stated that the man was guilty of copyright infringement. “The Court held that no person other than him [the defendant] could have used the IP address, and therefore he was sentenced,” said Antipiratgruppen lawyer, Maria Fred Lund.

The defendant was ordered to pay 160,000 kroner ($24,400) in damages, which was substantially less than the 440,000 kroner ($67,200) the anti-pirates wanted. He was also ordered to delete the music files he had obtained illegally.

Although the damages are less than the IFPI would’ve liked, the defendant’s lawyer, Per OverBech, says they could appeal to get the damages reduced. The court calculated the damages based on the losses estimated to have been suffered following the breach of copyright. The Vestre Landsret set an amount of 80,000 kroner ($12,200) and used the principle of ‘double-up’ to reach a final figure of 160,000 kroner ($24,400).

The ‘double up’ provision in Danish law is comprised of two parts. The first part covers the losses estimated to have been suffered following the breach of copyright. The court then doubles this amount to cover the actual losses and the documenting of such losses, which Antipiratgruppen and IFPI did not do.

“It is worth noting that it certainly pays to deal critically with the requirements of Antipiratgruppen,” said Per OverBech. “But in this case, the Vestre Landsret applied the principle of double-up, and I do not think there is reason for this,” noting that Antipiratgruppen provided no evidence to prove that sales had declined due to the alleged file-sharing activities of his client.

OverBech admits that it is unlikely that he will achieve an acquittal for his client but could go to the Supreme Court to contest the ‘double up’ principle applied by Vestre Landsret.

Thanks Peter_Pan

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IFPI Wins Danish File-Sharing Case torrent downloads.

Most often, companies such as BayTSP and MediaSentry are hired to connect to BitTorrent trackers, and send takedown notices to the users (via their ISP) who download movies, TV-shows or music albums of a company they represent. This is a fairly easy process, since BitTorrent is far from anonymous: Every user necessarily broadcasts his or her IP-address to other peers in the swarm.

Sometimes anti-piracy outfits use their own trackers to gather evidence. Last week we reported that The Pirate Bay started to actively remove these suspicious trackers from their torrents, with some help from torrenteditor.com. Running a tracker is not required though, to collect information from BitTorrent users. In fact, many attempt to use publicly available trackers such as The Pirate Bay to do so. However, the tracker owners are aware of this, and trick these tracking companies by polluting the list of IP-addresses the tracker returns. That is one of the techniques The Pirate Bay uses, just to show how flawed the evidence gathering is.

Polluting the evidence works like this. When a client asks for a list of peers who are downloading the same torrent, the tracker software automatically inserts several “random IP addresses” that are not in the swarm. They are based on existing sub-nets, but might be from people who may not even be aware that BitTorrent exists. This means that the evidence that’s being gathered by anti-piracy companies includes IPs that belong to people that were not downloading the movie or album they are accused of. Perfect deniability, as the people who coded the tracker software explain.

Of course, this doesn’t work when the pirate-tracking company requires itself to connect to the peer, before the IP-address is collected, since it is impossible to connect to a non-existing peer. A representative from BayTSP told TorrentFreak that they have such a requirement, but several others are less thorough, which makes their claims useless, and impossible to defend in court.

The best solution is of course to ban these anti-piracy companies from using the tracker in the first place. This is something The Pirate Bay is working on as well, and they have blocked many IP-ranges already, but it’s impossible to ban them all. Unlike most of the suits in Hollywood, the companies that go after illicit file-sharers are experts in their field, and know more about BitTorrent than many users. They try to circumvent blocklists such as PeerGuardian whenever possible, and change IPs when they are marked.

Pirate Bay co-founder TiAMO told TorrentFreak that he has several criteria on which he can pick out the suspicious users that might be collecting IP-addresses. He also said that he’s working on a automated warning system which will operate as a sniffer on a monitor port. That project is far from complete, but has the potential to detect suspicious behavior more easily.

Nevertheless, it is impossible (as the name might give away) to keep the prying eyes of Hollywood off public trackers. Even private trackers are far from secure, as most anti-piracy companies have accounts at the larger communities. The private in “private tracker” merely refers to the fact that you have to login, and has nothing to do with “security”. The Pirate Bay (and other tracker owners) take several measures to prevent their users from being tracked by anti-piracy outfits, but there’s only so much they can do.

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Pirate Bay Tricks Anti-Pirates with Fake Peers torrent downloads.

Quote Unquote Records is an Internet based record label, run by Bomb the Music Industry! and ‘The Arrogant Sons of Bitches’ frontman Jeff Rosenstock. A forward looking outfit, all artists on the label give their music away for free on the label’s website. Well, they would, if the webhost hadn’t have taken down the site for alleged copyright infringement.

In a MySpace blog entry, Jeff Rosenstock explained that the Quote Unquote Records site is non-operational, and other sites connected to the label, including the Bomb the Music Industry! and Arrogant Sons of Bitches sites, have all been taken down too. So what happened?

Around a week ago, the label was notified by its webhost that it had some copyright music files on its server, which was no surprise to them since they were tracks by Arrogant Sons of Bitches, one of the label’s bands. The tracks the webhost referred to were actually written by Jeff himself. Jeff spoke with someone at the host on the telephone, explained that they were his own tracks and was informed this wasn’t a problem.

Three days later the labels site went down completely, due to Jeff hosting his own copyright files on his own site - a claimed violation of the hosting company’s Terms of Service. In order to solve the problem, Jeff would have to send his copyright registration forms to the host by mail, to prove he held the copyright, a problem in itself, explains Jeff:

“I called the company to explain that a lot of this material was NOT in fact registered with the US copyright office, instead we did the ol’ poor man’s copyright. The music that was copyrighted was done so under a Creative Commons License, which is a digital copyright that cannot be viewed if the website where the files are posted is down.”

It seems amazing that a host should be proactive like this, especially since it has clearly made a huge mistake. However, a week later and Jeff’s site is still down and he’s quite rightly upset: “I guess the scary thing for me is that it seems that my hosting server employs a guilty before proven innocent policy, which is terrifying for anyone who does not physically mail forms for every small idea they’ve ever had in their bedroom to the US copyright office. What a great new digital age, stuck in the trappings of wasteful forms and red tape.”

If losing your site to a bogus copyright claim isn’t enough, there is a more immediate problem. Jeff is being denied access to his data by the host and he says that since he had a crash on his local hard drive, he no longer has copies of any of the content that was on the Quote Unquote Records server. “So, long story short, I’m looking for any artwork or mp3s that were put on Quote Unquote Records,” he said.

If you can find any of the material Jeff is looking for on P2P networks, please post comments on his blog.

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Record Label ‘Infringes’ Own Copyright, Site Pulled torrent downloads.

Previously we’ve discussed how certain countries have been pushing for laws requiring ISPs to disconnect filesharers, if they receive multiple notices alleging copyright infringement. This proposal has been struck down by the EU, and no-one but lobby groups seems to want it.

However, over in New Zealand a law requiring ISPs to disconnect repeat copyright infringers has been proposed, passed and signed into law. The law, Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008 adds a new section to deal with Internet Service Providers and copyright infringement. Yet, opposition from ISPs, and Internet user groups may see it being struck down or modified before it goes into force.

The section in question, 92A reads

Internet service provider must have policy for terminating accounts of repeat infringers
(1) An Internet service provider must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the account with that Internet service provider of a repeat infringer.
(2) In subsection (1), repeat infringer means a person who repeatedly infringes the copyright in a work by using 1 or more of the Internet services of the Internet service provider to do a restricted act without the consent of the copyright owner.

Opposition to this section of law has been steady, with six industry bodies that have opposed the law meeting with government ministers. Indications from Communications Minister David Cunliffe and Associate Commerce Minister Judith Tizard, are that if the opposing groups and rights holders can come to an agreement by developing a workable code of practice, the law can be reworded. Tizard also reiterated strongly that the law was going ahead, and it would do so because of ‘Internet piracy’, according to one of the meeting’s participants

The issue at the heart of the debate is that of proof. InternetNZ head Keith Davidson told New Zealand’s Stuff, that he wanted to see an element of proof being required before people are cut off. A position understandable with the recent bad press given to copyright infringement allegations in the US, both in studies, and the courtroom. Countering him was the CEO of the NZ Recording Industry Association, telling Stuff that proving the guilt of infringers in a court of law, before any penalty is dealt out would be “impractical and ridiculous”, a sentiment also shared by his American counterparts.

A provision to penalize false or inaccurate accusations was in the bill at one point, after dealings by the group of six with a select committee. However, Tizard stated that it was inappropriate, as the Cabinet had already decided the law was to go ahead as was, and that people shouldn’t be surprised.

New Zealand is also in the middle of an election (voting day is November 8th) so there may be a change of ministers soon. These may be more amenable to changing the wording of the law, to be based on proof, not simple accusations. As always though, nothing is certain for the 3.3 million kiwi’s (around 80% of the population) on the net, except they are considered less important than the greed of lobby groups.

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New Zealand First to Adopt 3-Strikes Law for Pirates torrent downloads.

EPOE, Company for the Protection of Audio-Visual Works (known as Eteria Prostasias Optikoakoustikon Ergon), is a non-profit organization working to protect the copyrights of its for-profit members. Operating at the behest of its members, EPOE is given authority by Greek law enforcement and works under license of the Greek Copyright Organization, which itself is linked to the Ministry of Culture. Its members include many Greek companies but its international members are most easily recognized as they include MPA, Columbia, Fox, Universal, Buena Vista, MGM, Warner and Paramount.

On Tuesday, virtually every site offering user-generated Greek subtitles (fansubs) for English language movies and TV shows received legal threats from EPOE. Within a very short time, all sites including greektvsubs.gr, subtitles.gr, greeksubs, subs4u.gr and apsubs.com had either closed down or removed all subtitles. A sample of the translated complaint issued to greektvsubs is shown below:

According to our information and evidence, in your capacity as owner and manager of the website under the name www.greektvsubs.gr, without right and in violation of the provisions of Law 2121/93, without the required prior written permission of the legitimate beneficiaries of copyright and related rights of our member-companies, are engaged in a totally illegal activity, which consists of right without translation in the English language texts / dialogues and subtitles creation of films or television series, the royalties of which belong to our member companies, which you have then illegally and without right, distributed via the Internet.

So why are the Greeks file-sharers so upset? Yiannis, a user close to the subtitling sites explained to TorrentFreak: “Greek TV networks are most of the times very slow in airing the popular shows (one or two years is common), not showing them at all or the worst, or show a season or two and then forget about them, leaving the fans looking desperately for solutions. DVD distribution companies are no better. Some popular shows do not even exist in a translated form.”

“A couple of years ago dedicated fans started working to translate and create subtitles of their favorite shows and they teamed up to create a few web sites to share them with the rest of the fans,” Yiannis said “One of the biggest was greektvsubs.gr. These people managed to do with hard work, love and dedication what the TV industry failed: translate TV show episodes hours after they were aired and offer the subtitles for Greek speaking people to be able to watch their favorite show.”

There is currently a fierce debate surrounding the legality of such fan-subtitling sites. The Greek subtitles (in common with user-generated subtitles in other locales) are the result of hours of really hard work, listening to the TV show or movie in its native English and then translating by hand into Greek. The ’subbers’ don’t have access to the original scripts, everything is created from scratch since the movie or TV show isn’t even available in Greek, so on this basis some believe the sites operate legally. However, some are suggesting that under Greek copyright law, a translation could be considered as a ‘derivative work’ and as such requires permission from the original copyright holder.

Whatever the truth - and this is echoed in the emails we’ve received here at TorrentFreak from the fans - there is obviously a really healthy demand for these products in Greek language (not to mention from deaf people who absolutely rely on subtitles), yet the media companies spend their money on litigation, instead of addressing the core issue of giving the fans what they want.

In the meantime, while EPOE throws its considerable weight around, the show goes on for Greek subtitling fans as they head to their new home at gr.tvsubtitles.net.

Thanks to Yiannis and fakeb0us

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Anti-Pirates Wipe Out Movie and TV ‘Fansub’ Sites torrent downloads.

The UK’s Performing Rights Society (PRS) is a non-profit organization, setup to ensure that the music industry continues to make plenty more profits on an on-going regular basis. For years now, they have collected license fees from companies that use music as part of their businesses, such as pubs, clubs and restaurants. Some might argue that these type of companies benefit commercially from playing music to the public, so a license fee, although not particular popular, can be absorbed as a legitimate business expense.

However, recently the PRS has been getting more and more aggressive in its quest to funnel cash to its paymasters. It now sees every UK organization - commercial or otherwise - as a legitimate target to intimidate with threats of legal action, should they dare to play a radio, TV or DVD within earshot of the public without a license. Small businesses playing the radio for personal entertainment to pass the working day, charities, tea rooms, corner shops and even community centers are being targeted by this outfit. Bizarrely, they are currently going after the British police, who have been refusing to pay. It’s clear, they care about just one thing - money.

To get this money the PRS go after people like the 61 year-old mechanic Paul Wilson, who has worked alone at his garage for 23 years since he was 15. He can’t afford the PRS license, so now he has to work in silence. “When I was first contacted by the PRS I thought somebody was having a laugh with me,” he said. But really, this is no laughing matter. After the demands for money, Mr Wilson told the PRS to take his radio to prove he wasn’t listening to it, but the PRS warned that the police could come round to do spot checks. Meanwhile, the garage next door to Mr Wilson also received a PRS letter, so they are maintaining radio silence too. Just regular people trying to earn a living, being chased down for money to listen to a radio at work. It’s astonishing.

When the small guy gets hit by these type of issues it really annoys people in the copyright debating community. However, if you really want to widen the debate and spread some really bad PR, it’s going to take tactics which show how low you are prepared to go. For instance, you could go after a charity trying to raise funds via a tea-room, discover their staff radio can be overheard, and demand money from them.

But it is possible to further outrage people. And this is what these type of collection outfits are doing, by widening their campaigns to start going after the softest most impressionable target in the country - kids. Last week we reported how the MPLC, a Hollywood royalty collection outfit, (illegally) demanded money from kindergartens in Ireland, so that the kids could watch DVDs there.

But going after children isn’t exclusively an MPLC tactic, the PRS are doing it too. Part of the claim against the tea-rooms mentioned above was that the kids there needed to be licensed to sing carols in front of the public and now, to add insult to injury, the PRS ‘non-profit’ copyright cop is going after a kid’s non-profit community center in Glasgow, Scotland. The Yoker Resource Centre is faced with a £3,000 bill, it if wants to carry on using its TV, radio or CD player, that is.

Elizabeth Busby, the after-school supervisor at the center told ClydeBank Post: “We can’t afford to pay this money. Although we have a TV license for the center, under these rules we cannot let all the kids watch it.”

Wondering (like the rest of us in the sane world) why people have to pay twice or more for using the same product, Ms Busby added: “If the children are watching a DVD then I have gone out and paid for it, so whether it is one person or twenty-five I still paid for it. It’s not as if I’m buying pirate copies or downloading them illegally. Soon it will be the Halloween party and what do we do for music?”

Asked to comment, the PRS declined. I’d like to think that the silence is down to shame, but I doubt it. I’ll leave you with some comments from Steve Pendlebury, writing in The Bolton News:

“Radio stations pay large amounts of money to licensing organizations PRS and PPL for the music they play, and music has been on the radio for many years. During the war, there were programmes like Workers Playtime and Music While You Work. Now, many radio stations have features about workplaces. If the PRS force people to switch their radios off then how are these stations going to survive?

Music has to be heard before people go out and buy it.”

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Copyright Cops Target Kids’ Schools and Community Centers torrent downloads.

Similar to other consumer rights organizations, the Norway Consumer Council (Forbrukerrådet) is dedicated to representing the interests of consumers, operating independently of the commercial interests of others. It aims to influence business, at the same time as educating and providing help to consumers, and has been vocal in its opposition of iTunes DRM.

Back in March this year, the Council (NCC) entered the file-sharing debate, when it advised members of the public not to comply with the demands of a Norwegian law firm. The law firm, Simonsen, had sent out letters to ISPs demanding that alleged pirates sign legal agreements accepting that they had shared files, and promising never to do it again. The NCC legal officer, Hans Marius Graasvold, said that the signing of such a letter (which is very similar indeed to the letters sent out by UK lawyers Davenport Lyons) makes the consumer liable for all past and future acts of file-sharing in his household, and should be avoided at all costs. This intervention by NCC led to the Norwegian ISP association advising their members not to pass on the lawyers letters.

NCC is also opposed to any “3 strikes” type legislation, calling it a “grossly disproportionate” response, with Hans Marius Graasvold stating that consumers facing such allegations are deprived of due process and their right to privacy. Internet access should be provided by an ISP on “neutral terms” with “legal protection against arbitrary termination of the contract.”

Presumably trying to find some middle-ground in this file-sharing debate, which includes the sticky issues of citizen’s rights, due process and privacy, the NCC has started discussions with representatives of the copyright industry and ISPs, with a view to the creation of an independent committee empowered to act in cases of alleged copyright infringement. Major Norwegian ISPs have apparently welcomed the initiative.

The proposals suggest that such a committee should be run by a public authority, and act as a mechanism for alternative dispute resolution and in other cases, a complaint board. When an alleged pirate is approached with allegations by a copyright holder, the consumer would then have the opportunity to send the complaint to the committee for its consideration, with any decision subject to appeal.

The NCC hopes to put its proposals to the Norwegian government by mid 2009.

Ofcom, the UK’s independent regulator for the communications industry has also indicated that it could get involved in the file-sharing debate, in trying to find an alternative to the doomed “3 strikes” proposals, although it hasn’t suggested that it would offer any arbitration services.

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Norway Mulls Anti-Piracy ‘Complaint Board’ Proposal torrent downloads.

The Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008, or PRO IP Act, finally gathered the signature of President George W. Bush, and made it into law. The act, as we previously reported, has been criticized by both the US Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Commerce (DOC), but gathered support in the wake of economic troubles that have hit the US.

Title I of the bill, which allowed the DOJ to pursue civil copyright cases, was dropped by the senate when they passed the bill, with Richard Esguerra, spokesman for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, noting that he was relieved that attorneys won’t become “pro bono personal lawyers for the content industry.” However, the objections of the DOC - that the creation of a ‘Copyright Czar’ would be an unconstitutional violation of Separation of Powers - went unopposed. Included in the bill is the issue of ‘civil forfeiture’, where articles can be seized and held if it is thought they are to be used in committing a crime, or infringement.

The unanimous passage of this bill is worrying, mainly because it shows a triumph for lobbying over facts, and how common sense can be easily overruled with enough money and influence. Claims that support the bill include spurious job creations from this bill, to money saved in the economy. “Counterfeiting and piracy costs the United States nearly $250 billion annually,” says the US Chamber of Commerce in a Reuters article, while others have more effectively broken down the figures and pointed out how they don’t make sense.

Yet, in a country on the brink of economic meltdown, a bill that is claimed to help the economy by creating jobs (and boost the economy by reducing those jobs and revenue claimed to be lost) seems like a good political move, regardless of how absurd and baseless the figures are. Dan Glickman of the MPAA certainly wants to play the economic card, saying: “At this critical time for our economy, it’s important to send a message that the jobs created and maintained by the protection of intellectual property is a national priority.”

The person filling this Copyright Czar role will, presumably, be in a similar position to that of the Drugs Czar, and will listen mainly to lobbyists and ’safe’ peer pressure. Just as in the case of narcotics, symptoms will be dealt with, and not causes. Targeting causes means targeting contributors, while targeting symptoms just means targeting voters, and there are millions of them. It also remains to be seen who will be given the role of Copyright Czar, but don’t be surprised if it’s a member of the MPAA/RIAA, although some might start pushing for Prof. Lessig, as happened when California’s 12th District lost its congressman. However, Prof. Lessig told TorrentFreak that he’s “not going to be an enforcement czar, and nor would I be wanted for that.”

Perhaps the worst aspect of the bill, though, is the extension of forfeiture. Already used extensively in drugs cases, it is often inappropriately applied. If drugs are found in someone’s home, and along with that comes a claim from a 3rd party (even if they were caught breaking into the home) that they were dealing, the home owner can have their house taken away, along with anything of value in it.

Although some may feel that forfeiture is an appropriate response to serious large scale drug dealing, those same draconian measures can now apply to copyright infringement cases. It can cause more expense and difficulty in defending cases when defendants have to prove in a separate court action, that the materials seized were not used for the actions claimed. Wikipedia indicates that 3 years, and $10,000 is the typical cost of fighting such cases. Public Knowledge opposes these forfeiture measures, with spokesman Art Brodsky saying: “Let’s suppose that there’s one computer in the house, and one person uses it for downloads and one for homework. The whole computer goes.”

The increase in powers and fines exacerbates an already bad situation. With the forfeiture laws, in theory they may be able to have equipment belonging to ISP’s seized (while the DMCA gives safe harbor for prosecution under infringement, it may not allow a defense under forfeiture) and that could be used as a club to beat ISPs into the role of copyright police – one that ISPs worldwide have been loathed to accept.

With the election just weeks away, perhaps our American readers might be interested in tracking who voted for the bill, as all representatives are up for election. Senate voting was not recorded.

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Bush Signs Draconian Anti-Piracy Law torrent downloads.

Quietly and with little fuss, January 2007 saw the birth of TextBook Torrents, a relatively small site initially, offering a BitTorrent tracker dedicated to the indexing of textbooks. In 6 months the site had accumulated 10,000 members. Just 3 months later, the number of users had doubled to 20,000 and by January 2008 the membership doubled again to an impressive 40,000. By the end of June 2008, almost 70,000 members were registered at TextBook Torrents and more and more people were becoming aware of its existence.

On July 1st 2008, Jeff Young, a writer with The Chronicle of Higher Education, wrote an article entitled Textbook Piracy Grows Online, Prompting a Counterattack From Publishers. The article focused on TextBook Torrents and it quickly gained traction after being picked up by Slashdot and subsequently, many other mainstream publications. In this explosion of publicity the site’s membership grew rapidly, but almost inevitably, the anti-piracy hawks began to circle.

Within days, Textbook Torrents’ host and domain registrar received takedown requests. At the time, Geekman, the admin of the tracker told TorrentFreak: “We received a DMCA notice from Pearson Education a week or so prior, which we complied with, but it was a group of publishers that contacted our host.” On July 5th Dreamhost suspended Geekman’s account and refused to speak with him and it took a week to even transfer the domain. It took a month for the site to return.

“I want to see the textbook industry change such that we are no longer needed,” Geekman told TorrentFreak when we asked him in early August about his motivation to bring back the site.

Now, just 2 months later, visitors to the TextBook Torrents site this week were faced with the grim reality that the site has gone. “TextBook Torrents won’t be coming back,” Geekman told TorrentFreak. “I’ve been at it for two years and it has been an awesome two years, but i’m ready to step back and hopefully allow somebody else to rise up in our place.”

Geekman told us that he felt that when it became clear to the copyright owners that simple threats to the site and its host wouldn’t be sufficient to close down the tracker, he himself became the next logical target: “We got word from several credible sources that there was a lawsuit in the works against myself personally,” he explained.

Of course, when anyone invests a huge amount of work into a project, there will be some pain to endure when it comes to an end, and Geekman is no different. “It does hurt. Textbook Torrents was my baby and one of my proudest projects, both personally and certainly as Geekman. At the same time, running the site had become very demanding. Since the attention last summer the site nearly doubled in size in 4 months from 60,000 to over 100,000 members. In all honesty, it was all I could do to keep up with media interview requests.”

Geekman told us that he was sorry to have to shut down the site without notice, but in the absence of others immediately stepping up to take over the running of the site, he had no alternative. He also said that he was disappointed that nobody stepped in with a replacement site when TextBook Torrents was down for 3 weeks in August, but hopes that someone will do so now.

When asked if book publishers have learned anything from the whole affair, Geekman said he doubted that: “Intellectual property corporations are notorious for missing the point. Like I’ve said before, we were out to make a statement, to give out as much free stuff as possible, and I think we’ve made that statement - perhaps not as loudly as we could have given another few months and a little more perseverance - but certainly people have heard, and are talking. Piracy will never be sustainable for the textbook industry, but perhaps this is the first step towards a more sustainable model in the future.”

When a torrent site goes offline, especially when it’s quite a quick shutdown, it’s inevitable that users get nervous that somehow they could be implicated if the site’s logs fall into the wrong hands. However, ex-users of the site have absolutely nothing to fear in this respect: “Textbook Torrents files, including logs and backups, have been permanently removed from all servers where they were stored,” notes Geekman, “We no longer have any data on the site or its users.”

All donations made to the site have been secured for the possibility of mounting a legal defense, should the need arise. However, once it’s established that Geekman is in the clear, whatever money is left over will be donated to a textbook or education-related non-profit organization. For his part, Geekman says he will ceremonially take the last $12 for himself, to cover the only thing he ever paid for on the site - the domain registration.

“I’m an activist, I’ll freely admit it but I believe activism is about a lot more than parading around holding a sign,” Geekman told TorrentFreak. “There are far more effective ways to get peoples’ attention.”

There can be no denying that TextBook Torrents did just that.

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TextBook Torrents Turns The Final Page and Closes Down torrent downloads.

Like many other filmmakers, Moore wants his film to be seen by as many people as possible. However, the ‘rights holders’ have other interests. They want to sell the movie to as many people as possible, making sure they get every penny they are entitled to.

Moore’s latest documentary, Slacker Uprising, is only available for free in Northern America. People who attempt to download the torrent elsewhere get this annoying “Sorry” message. Since there are no geographical restrictions on the official torrent file, however, it was easy to share the film with the rest of the world. It would only take one person to upload the torrent to another site, and the rest of the world would have access to it. That’s exactly what happened.

In last week’s article, we asked the question: “Is this deliberate, or accidental?” Since it is so easy to share the documentary with people outside the US and Canada, we hinted that this might have been done on purpose. A few days later, Michael Moore contacted us, with a direct response to the question we posed.

“What do you think I’m up to? I know it may not be obvious to most, but I think you guys get it,” Moore wrote to us. “I only own the US and Canadian rights. So my hands are tied. But this is the 21st century. What are ‘geographical rights’ ?” Moore continued. “I’ll say it for the hundredth time: If I buy a book and read it, and then give you the book to read, I have broken no laws. Why is that not true for all media?”

“I wish someone would figure out what I am up to,” he concluded. We believe many people have by now. This isn’t the first time Moore has clashed with the ‘rights holders’ of one of his own films. Last year The Weinstein Co. went after websites that hosted “Sicko”, while Moore publicly said that it was ok for people to download his movie illegally. “I’m not a big believer in our copyright laws. I think they’re way too restrictive,” he said at the time.

Even further back, in 2004, Moore also backed the people who downloaded his documentary Fahrenheit 9/11. “The more people who see it the better, so I’m happy this is happening, he said. “Is it wrong for someone who’s bought a film on DVD to let a friend watch it for free? Of course it’s not. It never has been and never will be. I think information, art and ideas should be shared.”

Perhaps it’s time to do a documentary on the anti-piracy and pro-copyright lobby Mr. Moore? They might not kill our children in the US or overseas, but they do kill creativity, innovation, and the spread of knowledge. Worth looking into.

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Michael Moore on Slacker Uprising’s Piracy ‘Problem’ torrent downloads.

The intent of FUD is to make people afraid (Fear) confuse issues and facts (Uncertainty) and make people change their attitudes to what they’ve done (Doubt). In many ways it’s the cheapest and easiest anti-piracy method. It doesn’t rely on facts, but on careful releases of information, and calculated small acts.

A small act could be starting a rumor or giving an interview to a student newspaper. Such tactics are cheap and often have much better returns than costly (and ultimately useless) technology-based methods. They also have the added advantage that if they don’t work, it doesn’t tend to count against you. That is, unless you’re caught at it.

FUD is used everywhere. At Elon University, a small university just east of Greensboro, in North Carolina for example. In a file-sharing piece last week in the student newspaper, the strategy of intimidation was plain to see. If you are unaware of the law regarding copyright infringement, however, you might be taken in.

The article starts with talk of rumors, concerning all manner of things designed to instill fear; RIAA reps roaming the campus, being able to backtrack to things that happened years ago. Rumors that lead to uncertainty (how far back? Will that include something I did?) as well as doubt (anything I can do about it?).

Throughout the article, Assistant Vice President for Technology Chris Fulkerson makes it clear that students should be very careful. However, he’s not afraid to tweak the facts a little, or tell outright lies, for that matter. At one point he states that the fine is “$250,000 per infraction” which is a complete lie. As regular readers and followers of US copyright infringement cases know, the maximum damages that can be awarded per infraction is $150,000 not $250,000 (USC Title 17, § 504 (c)(2)). The most they have managed to get in these cases is $9,250, but even that turned out to be too much.

Of greatest worry was his position on the details of students. Fulkerson has said that when/if the RIAA asks for names and details that correspond to an IP, the university will hand them over if the person can be identified. As the RIAA’s strategy is to file many lawsuits, and try and force a settlement (by making it cheaper to settle than to contest), handing over details is in the worst possible interests of the students, and may be illegal. Regardless of its legality, or how true the statement is in practice, the impact of the statement is chilling to many students.

Fulkerson also makes some other comments designed to disquiet the students. He says that the RIAA has no need to visit Elon, they can just jump on the net and track people down, and that the university ‘must comply’ with the RIAA. Again, this is not even close to the truth. The RIAA is a lobby group, not a government or law enforcement agency, and there is no requirement to comply with them. On the contrary, RIAA’s “tracking company” MediaSentry is not listed as holding a private investigators license by the state, nor are investigators from their home state of Maryland allowed to practice in North Carolina.

Elon is not alone though. In Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Lehigh University also has a similar belief. Speaking to their student paper, University security officer Blair Bernhardt said that when they receive a notification of alleged infringement, the target’s Internet access is immediately cut off. “We lock the port instantly because we have to,” he said. “It’s the law to block access to the infringing materials, and it keeps the university from being liable for anything.” What law requires this action is currently unknown.

Unlike the MPAA and RIAA’s campaigns, these FUD methods tend to work, because the universities have student’s personal details. Worse, the person that should be the student’s supporter, is the student’s enemy. Mr Fulkerson did not respond to requests to comment.

More on tackling campus piracy

Part 1 – The P2P Quiz
Part 2 - The Technological Approach

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Tackling Campus Piracy with FUD torrent downloads.

We have recently reported on the situation in the UK where charities and even police forces are threatened with legal action for playing music within earshot of the general public. Hollywood is no stranger to strict royalty collection activities either, and has stooped to a new low.

The Motion Picture Licensing Company (MPLC), which is charged with collecting royalties for the big studios, recently wrote to 2,500 kindergartens (or playschools as they are known in Ireland), informing them that it is illegal for the kids there to watch DVDs without an appropriate license.

According to The Times, the letter was sent with the knowledge of the Irish Preschool Play Association (IPPA), which represents many schools populated by around 50,000 kids between 3 and 5 years of age. The IPPA had worked out a deal with the Hollywood representatives, and eventually managed to get the royalties down to 3 euros per child.

Despite the lowered fee, most kindergarten owners were stunned by the request. Paula Doran, who runs a playschool in Dublin, said that the only time the kids hardly watch any DVDs at the kindergarten. “We would rarely show DVDs anyway because it’s frowned upon — kids get enough TV at home,” she said. In fact, the only time the kids are allowed to watch a DVD is when they are pretending to go to the cinema. Doran said she couldn’t understand how the MPLC could be acting legally, and refused to pay.

It turned out that she was absolutely right not to pay. The MPLC actually failed to register with the Irish Patent Office, and by demanding payments in the way they have, breached the 2000 Copyright Act. A spokesman from the IPO confirmed that an organization that acts in this manner could be fined or have its staff jailed.

The MPLC belated applied for a license to collect the royalties on Friday. It’s never too late to learn, or for the kids, never too early to start filling Hollywood’s pockets.

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Hollywood Illegally Demands Money From Kindergartens torrent downloads.

Earlier this week, Swedish news site Nyheter24 was launched. Backed by big investors, it aims to challenge the established newspapers online and appeal to a young readership with quick reporting.

Of course, since young readers are used to downloading the TV shows they want to watch, it was natural for Nyheter24 to include not only a top-list of conventional audience ratings on their TV schedules page, but also the top-list of most downloaded TV shows at The Pirate Bay. In addition, the site decided to link the entries in the top-list entries to the respective TV show’s torrent page on The Pirate Bay.

This didn’t fall too well with Henrik Pontén of the Swedish Anti Pirate Bureau. Pontén gathered fame earlier for manufacturing evidence against The Pirate Bay before the controversial raid, and spearheading the copyright lobby as charges were filed against the tracker in January.

“We consider this being ‘assisting copyright infringement’, just like The Pirate Bay itself. I assume this is a mistake and that they will remove the links,” he told Realtid.se. The story didn’t discuss if sites that are linking to Nyheter24.se (or sites that link to sites that link to Nyheter24.se) are also considered to be assisting in copyright infringement by Pontén.

Nyheter24 replied to Pontén’s accusations, and said that the The Pirate Bay admins have not yet been convicted of anything illegal, and that removal of the links only become matter of discussion if they, against all odds, will be. Hours later, however, Nyheter24 revised its position and removed the direct links to the torrent pages. The site kept the top-list on their TV schedules page, with a link to The Pirate Bay’s front page instead.

“We are removing the direct links since they may be illegal and it’s not our intention to challenge copyright law. However, half of the Swedish population downloads from the net and I’d love to have a partnership with The Pirate Bay,” said Douglas Roos, chairman of the Nyheter24 board.

If Henrik Pontén decides to pursue the matter, and file charges against Nyheter24 on the same basis as he went for The Pirate Bay, he will have a familiar face to battle in court. Nyheter24’s legal representative is none other than Monique Wadstedt, better known as the MPA’s judicial representative in Sweden and Pontén’s sidekick in their Don Quijote quest against The Pirate Bay.

“These boys will go to jail,” she said in January when charges were filed against The Pirate Bay. “I have no comments. I won’t answer further questions,” she said on Friday when asked for a comment about the criticism from her partner Henrik Pontén about her other partner Nyheter24.

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News Site Criticized for Linking to Pirate Bay Torrents torrent downloads.

On Thursday we reported that the director of the ‘Saw’ sequels was rallying support for a novel way to tackle piracy, by encouraging fans to upload fakes to BitTorrent. The director, Darren Bousman, who admits to not being particularly Internet tech-savvy, was doing his best to protect the soundtrack of his upcoming movie, Repo! The Genetic Opera, from Internet piracy.

The report caused quite a stir, with dedicated Repo! fans, known as the ‘Repo Army’, angry at BitTorrent users for “stealing” their soundtrack (more about why this is so important to them later) and BitTorrent users angry at the Repo! fans for trying to mess up their torrent sites with fakes.

Director Darren Bousman has since told his fans to leave BitTorrent alone, and there even some torrent users having friendly chats on the Repo! forums now. To see things from ‘the other side’, we caught up with Darren to find out exactly why this soundtrack is so important to the Repo! fans.

TF: Please introduce yourself to the TorrentFreak readers.

dlb: Most of you know me from the SAW films. But long before SAW I was directing this little stage play called Repo! The Genetic Opera. It was the first thing I ever read that spoke to me. I have been fighting to get it made [as a movie] ever since. It’s been a long long road - and only now, after the success of three SAW films am I able to get Repo! off the ground.

TF: What makes it so different to your previous work?

dlb: Repo! to me was about doing something completely different. I had directed three sequels. I am proud of the SAW films, but I wanted to do something unique. Repo! is that. A lot of people will hate Repo!, a lot will love it. I will admit it’s polarizing. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Repo! is so different than SAW in every single aspect. I hope people give it a chance, and don’t prejudge it because of certain cast members they may dislike, or on the mere fact people ’sing’ in it.

TF: You’ve gone on record saying that you feel very protective of the movie, as if watching over a child’s first day at school, and that’s understandable. The actual movie comes out on November 7th, however, you asked the fans to concentrate on ‘protecting’ the soundtrack instead. Could you explain why this soundtrack is so crucial to you, your fans and the upcoming movie?

dlb: I am not some muti-millionaire - and sales of this album will affect me personally. I have been begging and pleading to get this movie made since 2001. I have fought, burned bridges, sacrificed relationships, and even ended relationships all based on Repo! Why? Because I believe in the project so much. I put all my resources into making this movie. However though the entire course of making it - I was told IT WOULDN’T work, that there wasn’t an audience for this and I have been met with constant opposition. At one point there was talk of not even releasing a soundtrack. I fought, screamed and fought some more to get this small release we have - on Amazon, iTunes and other downloadable sites. This was a way to gauge the interest in the film. I did this to show all the nay-sayers LOOK at our numbers. Look at the reactions.

TF: You told Alternative Film Guide that Repo! was so weird, out of the box, and avant garde that people didn’t know what to make of it. It sounds like getting people outside the mainstream familiar with the movie might be a challenge. How would you feel if thousands downloaded this soundtrack for free via BitTorrent but a proportion of those loved it and turned up at the theater as a paying customer?

DB: I wish it worked like this but for this film it doesn’t. That’s why I had the reaction I did when I heard it was being downloaded for free. The release of Repo! is only in 6 theaters. SIX THEATERS. Even if I sold out EVERY single show - in every single city - for the entire run, it still wouldn’t make the money it needs to make. Sales of the soundtrack are the only way to prove if this film registered with fans. Our hope was - the sales would be so good on the soundtrack - we would get more theaters. More screens, more showing. Repo! will not be in the majority of cities, or countries. Its only in three cities. THREE CITIES. This album was our way of showing those in charge there is an audience for this.

TF: Could you tell us about your hugely dedicated fans, the ‘Repo! Army’ ?

dlb: These are the greatest fans I have ever come across - the most loyal people I think I will ever meet. These people weren’t hired by me. They found Repo! A good portion of the Repo! Army has seen the movie through various festivals. And the movie spoke to them. Since I don’t have the support of most movies - I turn to them to help spread the word. I never realized how passionate they were until recently when they turned out in droves to Austin Texas to see a screening of Repo! They are as passionate about Repo! as your users are about file sharing.

TF: Of course, BitTorrent fans can spread the word for you too. An interesting group have been vocal in emails to TorrentFreak - the Repo! fans who are also BitTorrent users. Are you surprised that some of your fans in the ‘Repo Army’ are buying your material with a passion, yet appear to be using BitTorrent too?

dlb: No, not at all. I am sure tons of people use these sites. The sad fact with Repo! is that every person who purchases the album for $9.99 is making a big statement. And these statements are going to be be the difference between Repo! playing in six theaters, or seven. To the mass population this will seem trivial - but for us, who have very little support or marketing. One paid download is huge.

TF: Thanks for speaking with us Darren, and we wish you well with the movie.

The brief storm that blew up between the opposing groups has largely died down now, after being dampened by Darren’s request to his fans to stop actions against torrents. After much correspondence with Darren it seems clear to us that he never really intended to hurt BitTorrent, but acted passionately in his role as the ‘protective father’ of the movie, not as some greedy corporate fat cat.

Darren told TorrentFreak that he was sorry that his actions offended some BitTorrent users, adding “Just understand, we are not the studio system. We are not the major corporation. We are a group of people who have been fighting to get something made only to see it released in just 6 theaters.”

It’s not hard to see why this movie and its soundtrack has raised such passions, when years of planning, investment and dreams rest on the success of such a small release window. However, in the absence of a huge marketing investment by Lions Gate, the movie will live or die by word of mouth and magnitude of Internet ‘buzz’.

Big named movies and albums gain less from the publicity offered by piracy than smaller productions desperate for exposure, so at least on the surface, Repo! seems an ideal candidate to benefit. It will be interesting to see how much success this movie gets, and if the piracy situation mirrors that. Hopefully, if the Repo! soundtrack does get downloaded a lot - and loved - those six theaters will be full and extended to more, which can’t fail to boost January’s DVD release.

Of course, when you rely on companies like Lions Gate to get even 6 theaters, admitting that piracy might help isn’t going to go down too well.

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“Saw” Director Explains Why He Was Worried By BitTorrent torrent downloads.

Darren Bousman, director of Saw II, III and IV, and no stranger to scenes of slaughter, has been caught up in his very own BitTorrent bloodbath. On the official forum for his up-coming movie Repo! the Genetic Opera, Bousman has been rallying support among his forum fans (known as the ‘Repo Army’) to become some kind of highly motivated, organic peer-to-peer version of MediaDefender.

Bousman details his brilliant plan in the forum post:

People will copy and burn the REPO CD and put it out on the web on something called TORRENT SITES. What this means to the movie is devastating. Basically - those who MIGHT have bought the soundtrack will instead download it for free… Thus hurting the soundtrack, and the movie. So what can you do?

Upload FAKE REPO albums to TORRENT sites under the REPO name. Meaning basically people will go online to a TORRENT site and try to search for REPO. They will find it - but alas it wont be REPO. It will be something else… If enough people do this - it becomes harder to STEAL the album.

Pain, something found in abundance in the Saw movies, was evident in the disorganized battle-plan that followed. Technical discussion began, noting the need for a good fake album to have the same number of tracks as the real version. Other suggestions to thwart the evil pirates include renaming and seeding random songs, and uploading audio recordings which preach the importance of buying the album.

After someone pointed out that people would complain about fake torrents in the comments section of torrent sites, solutions offered included the Army posting its own comments saying that the fake isn’t really a fake, and posting on real torrents to say that they were the fakes. Both techniques were doomed to fail before they began.

One of our favorite posts was the user who offered to spam the Ares Galaxy network on her own, and unwittingly came up with the basis of a usable slogan for the fakes campaign: “Wait a minute, did Darren just ask us to essentially Rick-Roll people in the name of Repo? Hell yes.”

Sadly, even with an army of completely well-intentioned and dedicated fans plus a great slogan, victory isn’t guaranteed. After posting some fake torrents on The Pirate Bay, it didn’t take long for the negative comments from regular Pirate Bay users to build up, and the torrents were removed. Despite many attempts by the Army at countering with some fake comments of their own. The ranks of the general public Repo Army went into battle against just a few pirates but were completely unprepared, and suffered a bloody end that would’ve made Jigsaw proud.

One user seemed to be a bit more aware, posting, “You can keep it secret or whatever method you want, it’s not going to work. You can’t fool a pirate that easy, if we just could get scene access and pre it, so it looks real.”

Right now, the fans have regrouped and are currently marking real Demonoid torrents as containing a virus, in order to get them removed. It doesn’t seem to be working.

The Repo Army doesn’t act purely against BitTorrent, since it had been previously ordered to “Attack YouTube” by messaging anyone on the site who uploads any part of the album, and ordering them to take the clip down. Some fans are even creating Repo anti-piracy videos:

In the meantime the fans have ensured that the soundtrack in question, Repo! The Genetic Opera, is currently at 22 in Amazon’s bestsellers chart, largely thanks to 25 five-star reviews, which currently represent 100% of the total reviews on this album. Apparently it’s easier to fool Amazon than the average BitTorrent site.

Thanks to Charax

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“Saw” Director Recruits ‘Army’ to Post Fake Torrents torrent downloads.

When Michael Moore released his latest movie, Slacker Uprising, he made it clear that not only would the movie be completely free, but he also wanted everyone to “email it, burn it, and share it with anyone and everyone”. However, there was one rule - this generous offer from Moore would only apply to people living in the United States and Canada.

As we reported earlier, the decision to use BitTorrent for facilitating distribution of the movie made a bit of a mockery of the limitations of Moore’s offer, since using The Pirate Bay’s tracker sent the movie worldwide. So, even for a completely free movie, it seemed inevitable that the legal profession would get involved at some point, it was just a question of time.

It didn’t take long. In a letter dated September 25th, lawyers representing Westside Productions LLC, owner of the Slacker Uprising copyright sprang into action, demanding the removal of a torrent linking to the movie. However, they managed to make a novice error. Instead of contacting the host of the torrent site in question, the Swedish-hosted BTJunkie, they actually sent the US copyright takedown request (email & fedex) to their DNS provider, easyDNS.

easyDNS are based in Canada and, just like BTJunkie in Sweden, are not subject to the laws of the United States, although most lawyers don’t seem to understand this. Furthermore, since easyDNS aren’t even BTJunkie’s host, they are in no position to do anything about the torrent anyway.

Mark Jeftovic, a co-founder of easyDNS wrote: “But really, come on folks, please tell us that isn’t the basis for this take down request. Anybody with half a clue knows the net doesn’t work like that. In any case, I’ve sent them our standard ‘we’re not the web host, we’re just the lowly DNS service’, but I did point out this seeming contradiction in Michael Moore’s message vs his lawyer’s actions.”

Now that the lawyers managed to get a grasp of the role of a DNS server, they have withdrawn the complaint against easyDNS. They state that the problem is due to the fact that the infringing .torrent was hosted outside of the US and Canada, a situation which for some reason is unacceptable to their client and a ‘problem’ worth spending large sums of money on to remedy. Let’s be clear - no amount of money will solve this issue and it is absolutely absurd to even try.

“I’ve replied that they [the lawyers] should know it is highly impractical to attempt to impose geographical constraints on otherwise freely available files,” said Mark at easyDNS, “but I guess they want to give it a shot.”

Meanwhile, the admin of BTJunkie told us he has not yet received a takedown request.

Mo(o)re money down the drain….

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Slacker Uprising BitTorrent Takedown Sent to DNS Provider torrent downloads.

With 3.5 million Internet subscribers, Cox Communications is one of the larger ISPs in the US. Like all the other Internet providers, Cox receives numerous copyright related takedown requests from anti-piracy organizations.

However, it’s how they handle these requests that’s quite unique, and disturbing to say the least. Instead of sending their customer an email, notifying that they have received a DMCA takedown request on their behalf, Cox disables their Internet connection. Here is a quote from the warning page customers get to see when their Internet connection is cut off (screenshot below the article).

Under the DMCA, we have the responsibility to temporarily disable your Internet access, until such time as you take the necessary steps to remove the infringing files and to prevent further distribution of copyrighted material.

There are a couple of things wrong with this notification. First of all, and most importantly, the DMCA doesn’t oblige Cox to disable a customer’s Internet access at all. They have to notify their customer of the alleged infringement, but the measures they actually take are clearly out of proportion, and definitely not in the best interest of their customers.

Indeed, it has already led to a lot of frustration with Cox customers. One of them told TorrentFreak that he has been struggling for two days to regain his Internet access. The customer in question was instructed to call a phone number in order to resolve the issue, but it was impossible to get though for most of the day. When he finally got hold of someone via the regular customer service, he was simply told that he should call the same number he was given before.

After being on hold for more than an hour he eventually got through. The Cox customer told us what happened next: “He [Cox employee] said that he is going to allow me to have the Internet enabled for 1 hour while I ‘call my router company so they can walk me through securing my wireless network.’ If I don’t call back in the next hour, he will turn the Internet off again.”

First-time offenders will eventually get their Internet access reinstated, but not without being warned that they might lose it permanently if they receive two more takedown requests. “If it happens three times, I will be referred to their headquarters in Atlanta,” the Cox customer told us.

We contacted Cox’s customer support to verify this, and we were told that there is indeed a three strikes policy in place. When a Cox subscriber receives three takedown requests, their Internet access will be cut off entirely. Interestingly, this is the same policy that the European Parliament voted against last week, because it “restricts the rights and freedoms of Internet users.”

It turns out that Cox doesn’t need legislation to implement a three-strikes policy though. “Cox does in fact have a 3 strikes policy with regards to violations of our acceptable use policy for Internet service. If a customer’s service gets suspended 3 times for the same type of violation the customer risks having their Internet service terminated,” Cox’s customer support told TorrentFreak.

It is of course up to Cox how they handle alleged violations of their acceptable use policy. However, the problem lies in the fact that they act upon accusations made by the MPAA, RIAA and other anti-piracy organizations who employ evidence gathering methods that are shoddy, to say the least. In addition, there is still no law that requires a person to secure their wireless network and there are even routers that enable people to share their connection with outsiders.

We think that Cox clearly overstepped the mark here. Customers might not make as much noise as the lawyers of the entertainment industry, but eventually, they are the ones who bring in the money. Cox Communication currently uses the slogan “Your friend in the digital age.” Some friend…

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Cox Disconnects Alleged Pirates from the Internet torrent downloads.

Straddling both Eastern Europe and Southwestern Asia, Georgia hit world headlines recently for its conflict with South Ossetia and ultimately the Russian Federation. Rather than scenes of war dominating visual media, 2008 should have been a year of celebration for the Georgian movie industry. Before the hostilities it was marking 100 years of cinema in the country.

As Georgia struggles to return to some sort of normality, life goes on for businesses in the region, including the movie industry. However, the Georgian movie industry has to face some unique challenges. According to a report, along with other sites, two of the most popular Geogian movie download sites gol.ge and avoe.ge are able to operate freely. Unlike in the US, Europe and many other places around the world, there are no laws in place in Georgia to deal with unofficial movie sites.

This lack of legislation means that the movie industry has to deal with the issue in ways which differ from those of their US and European counterparts. In moves which will seem largely alien to most readers, the Georgian movie industry actually tries its best to keep on friendly terms with the unauthorized download sites in order to reach agreements with them.

Devi Gvaxaria, Manager of the Marketing Department at Cinema Rustaveli told The Financial that they deal with a unique situation in Georgia. “We are happy to have good relations with the main movie sites of Caucasus Online, who consider our request not to put films on the Internet at the same time as their first showings in the theatres,” he said, adding “But these are only some of them, there are different sites which are out of our control.”

Gvaxaria notes that most of the unofficial sites get their movies from other pirate sites internationally, but there is the language barrier, since most Georgians would prefer them in their native ‘Kartuli’. Of course, these technical limitations prove minor stumbling blocks for the resourceful.

“Several times hackers have rewritten the verbal part of a movie from our cinema,” says Gvaxaria. “They put a Dictaphone into their pockets before entering the film, which is impossible for us to stop. We can’t just check each and every person who enters our cinema.” Clearly Mr Gvaxaria hasn’t been to a big movie at a US theater recently.

Natia Meparishvili, PR and Marketing Manager of Cinema Amirani believes that the best protection against piracy is the tradition among the people of going to the cinema. However, it appears that negotiations with the unauthorized providers to keep brand-new movies off their sites for a while gives the theaters a little breathing room to make enough profit during the opening weeks.

Negotiating with pirates is something we have covered before, but it seems unlikely that US movie companies will follow this lead. Indeed, this interesting situation in Georgia will probably change too, as the article notes that the movie business is going to change “their friendly relations” with the unofficial sites and modify the discussion to be based around “the language of law”.

It sounds like Georgia is getting into a Western state of mind, in more ways than one.

Post from: TorrentFreak

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Georgia Negotiates With Internet Movie Pirates torrent downloads.

Founded in May 2005, Torrent.is had around 26,500 active users before the site was taken offline. The site only allowed Icelandic IPs to connect to the tracker, and it was by far the largest and most famous private BitTorrent tracker in Iceland.

Its popularity didn’t go unnoticed with the local anti-piracy lobby either. During November last year, Svavar Kjarrval, the owner of the tracker, received a preliminary injunction. While the majority of BitTorrent tracker owners would throw in the towel when confronted with legal action, Svavar decided to put up a fight. “I’m going to fight this as far as I possibly can. The general public seems to be on our side,” he told TorrentFreak at the time.

It turned out that he made the right decision. In March the court ruled in favor of the BitTorrent tracker. Svavar, and all Icelandic BitTorrent users were pleased with the outcome, but the legal bullying was far from over. As expected, the preliminary injunction stayed in effect, as the Icelandic movie and music industries announced they would appeal the decision at the Icelandic Supreme Court.

This May, the case was heard by the Supreme Court, and Torrent.is won again. The case was dismissed because some of the plaintiffs were found to have no legal grounds to pursue an injunction, and Torrent.is received an additional 400,000 ISK ($5025 US or 3250 Euros) on top of the 500,000 ISK that was already awarded in March.

Speaking to TorrentFreak, Torrent.is owner, Svavar Kjarrval, said he was “very happy with the decision.” He even planned to reopen the tracker on the May 16th. However, it never got that far as STEF (the Icelandic RIAA) filed a new lawsuit, demanding the shutdown of the site and some form of financial compensation.

This case was heard, and yesterday - yet again - the District Court ruled in favor of Torrent.is. The court again dismissed STEF’s demand to confirm the injunction. However, the legal bullying is still not over. Not all demands were dismissed directly, and STEF is likely to appeal at the Supreme Court for the ones that weren’t.

“I am happy about that partial victory even though I hoped for a complete dismissal,” Svavar told TorrentFreak in a response to the latest ruling. “The future is uncertain but I have confidence that the Icelandic court system will see that the case is based on a shaky foundation.”

Svavar further said that he’s not sure whether he will reopen the site once this action is over, however long that may take.

Post from: TorrentFreak

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Legal Bullying Continues for Icelandic BitTorrent Tracker torrent downloads.

It was a midweek battle that left the RIAA’s campaign against file-sharers reeling on the ropes. Until now, the RIAA’s approach was to throw money at attorneys, who would then take on random targets, unless money and promises were given - ‘legal mugging’ as it were.

It must have felt like an attack from behind when the RIAA heard that they lost its only major court victory, with a mistrial being declared in Capitol V Thomas. Making things worse, the Department of Justice, viewed by some to be the bully’s trusted lieutenant, turned on the content industries by soundly criticizing a bill aiming to increase copyright and patent enforcement powers.

The Thomas case is now a proverbial millstone around the neck of the RIAA. At first it looks impressive, and gives a frightening impression to anyone that thinks to challenge them, but now it’s starting to drag them down. Not only was the decision in the case thrown out, the statement by the judge in support of the mistrial reads like a critique of the legal arguments put forward by the RIAA over the last 5 years.

Yet, the millstone around the neck is not just in the refuting of legal arguments. It also extends to the excessive damages that were awarded in the first trial. The $9250 per infringement has been argued to be so far past constitutional restrictions on excessive punishments, that it has brought it into public attention. Because of this, it may end up reducing the maximum amount of damages and fines that can be awarded, which may also undermine the settlement encouragement (or ‘pay instead of fight’) strategy. The end of the judge’s order says it all:

While the Court does not discount Plaintiffs’ claim that, cumulatively, illegal downloading has far-reaching effects on their businesses, the damages awarded in this case are wholly disproportionate to the damages suffered by Plaintiffs. Thomas allegedly infringed on the copyrights of 24 songs – the equivalent of approximately three CDs, costing less than $54, and yet the total damages awarded is $222,000 – more than five hundred times the cost of buying 24 separate CDs and more than four thousand times the cost of three CDs. While the Copyright Act was intended to permit statutory damages that are larger than the simple cost of the infringed works in order to make infringing a far less attractive alternative than legitimately purchasing the songs, surely damages that are more than one hundred times the cost of the works would serve as a sufficient deterrent.

While 24 songs is more like two CDs (than the three the court states), that damages should go from 4000x losses (assuming 3CDs) to 100x, means that the $222,000 would be more like $5,550. That’s quite a difference. The same could be applied to amounts demanded in pre-trial settlements, where the RIAA has often asked too much. The court’s math is far more reasonable, despite being calculated using retail CD prices, which have all manner of mark-ups and distribution costs that are not relevant to digital music included. A digital download doesn’t have to pay for the CD blank and doesn’t have to pay for transportation to the store. There are no printing costs or middlemen profit. The court gives an estimated cost of $2.25 per track, the actual cost for a download is more than seven times less than that.

Of course, other arguments, ranging from definition semantics, to trying to use criminal law as precedent, were denied as well. Some of these arguments were novel, others seemed like desperation.

The other news from Wednesday didn’t help either, especially in the muddling of civil and criminal enforcement of copyright. The Department of Justice sent a letter to Senators Leahy and Specter over the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act (EIPRA) of 2008, which passed through the Senate judiciary committee last week. It stated that the Departments of Justice and Commerce had ’strong and significant concerns’ with portions of the act. In short, they said they didn’t want to be used as free lawyers for the entertainment industry, and also felt that the position of an ‘Anti-Piracy Czar’ would be, surprisingly, unconstitutional. When even the US Justice department, which has seemed indifferent to the US Constitution in recent years, uses it as an excuse to oppose new powers, it could be likened to rats leaving a sinking ship.

Of course, the past week hasn’t been only bad news for the RIAA and its members, it’s been bad press for them too. On Monday, they elected to proceed to a jury trial in Maverick V Harper, with a date set for November. The RIAA were unwilling to accept a $200/infringement settlement offered by the judge. In taking the offer, they would have had a win, but at a lower amount, and left the potential for innocent infringement defenses. However, with the Thomas mistrial ruling two days later, negating any precedent they hoped to point to, and undermining some of the possible defenses, it may seem they have gambled on a treble-or-nothing bet.

The case in question centers around 38 songs, although only 6 were downloaded by MediaSentry. What can make this case interesting is that MediaSentry may be in violation of the law, regarding Texas based investigators, and that the age of the defendant – Whitney Harper was 16 when the infringements allegedly occurred – make an innocent infringement defence possible. Attacking a young girl for actions in her teens may not play well with a jury.

All in all, a bad week for the RIAA, and it may only be the first of many. We may never know if the article written by New York based attorney Ray Backerman did anything to to bring about a closer examination of the RIAA’s cases. Nor can it be overlooked that Wednesdays are not the RIAA’s best days – exactly a week before the Thomas and DOJ setbacks, they set themselves up as targets of ridicule by suing Beckerman. They accused him of allegedly doing what they have been repeatedly accused of doing – irony indeed. Many people are doubtless wondering what excitement October 1st will bring.

Post from: TorrentFreak

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RIAA’s Week of Hell torrent downloads.

The power of anti-piracy lobbyists has grown significantly across Europe this year. In the UK, six major ISPs are working together with the music industry to start mass warning file-sharers. France has gone