TorrentFreak Email Update

Court Gives IFPI Permission To Identify Pirate Bay Users

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 11:20 AM PDT

tpb Every single week new lawsuits are filed aimed at discovering the identities of individuals who allegedly share copyright material online without the permission of rightsholders.

Most often these lawsuits are filed by porn companies, independent movie studios such as the one behind The Hurt Locker, and more recently book publishers such as Wiley. In almost all cases the aim is to identify users and get them to settle out of court, a strategy dumped by the major labels of the RIAA several years ago.

Now, however, there has been an interesting development in Scandinavia. The case involves an album from a very young artist called Robin Packalen, a child sensation who appears to be Finland’s answer to Justin Bieber.

On 22nd February 2012, Packalen, who’s signed to Universal Music, released his first album. Unsurprisingly the official street date was beaten by two days thanks to an uploader on The Pirate Bay. This didn’t go unnoticed by his label.

After monitoring the swarm, IFPI and Teosto, the Finnish Composers’ Copyright Society, went to court to obtain the personal details of the individuals behind a total of 82 IP addresses.

IFPI and Teosto convinced the Helsinki District Court that the pre-release leak cost them significant sums of money. The Court subsequently ordered two ISPs, Telia Sonera and Elisa, to provide the names and addresses of the alleged infringers to the rightsholders as requested.

Telia Sonera, to which 34 of the IP addresses relate, said it would comply with the Court and had no further comment. Elisa (30 IP addresses) also indicated it would comply if it could, but it may not have the information being requested.

The news has spooked one individual who contacted TorrentFreak this afternoon. He told us that he was one of the file-sharers in the swarm when the album was released and after seeding for a long time he’s “99% certain” his IP address will have been tracked.

“It happened to be my little sister’s birthday and guess who is her idol? Yep, you guessed right. As I’m such a nice big brother, I decided to download for her Robin’s newest album as a birthday present,” he told us.

“Well, it now seems like that present is turning out to be quite expensive, should they decide to send me a letter asking for money. If they do, I guess I have no other option but to pay. I’m just a poor student that can’t afford an expensive legal adviser to help me out.”

The question now is what IFPI and Teosto (or perhaps Universal directly) will do with the identities once they have obtained them. According to Antti Kotilainen of anti-piracy group TTVK (the outfit that conducted the investigation), the responses will vary.

“Every case will be investigated separately. Consequences will vary from compensation to a criminal investigation,” he said.

But considering the artist in question here – none other than Finland’s Justin Bieber – the chances are that many children will be caught up in the sweep. What will happen to them?

“In those cases, we hope the families will have a serious conversation with their children about piracy,” Kotilainen added.

Jarkko Nordlund, CEO of Universal Music Finland, warned that more albums had been monitored and more action could follow.

“This is a constant fight against piracy. We want to make sure people know there are legal ways to buy music online. We will communicate with the TTVK and see if there are serious infringers that we want to take to court,” Nordlund concluded.

Source: Court Gives IFPI Permission To Identify Pirate Bay Users

Hurt Locker Makers Return to Sue 2,514 BitTorrent Users

Posted: 23 Apr 2012 06:00 AM PDT

After being honored with an Oscar for Best Motion Picture in 2010, the makers of The Hurt Locker went on to sue thousands of people who allegedly shared the film online.

Movie studio Voltage Pictures was not only one of the first studios to sue BitTorrent downloaders in the US, it also secured the award for the biggest mass-BitTorrent lawsuit by listing 24,583 alleged infringers at once.

This case dragged on for nearly two years and after collecting an undisclosed number of settlements it was eventually closed last December. It remains unknown how profitable the lawsuit was for the movie studio, but since they haven’t given up on the scheme yet we assume that it wasn’t a financial debacle.

Last week the studio filed a brand new lawsuit in Florida against 2,514 John Doe defendants, who are all accused of downloading The Hurt Locker.

Through this lawsuit the studio wants to obtain a subpoena so they can order ISPs to reveal the identities of the alleged downloaders. These account holders will then receive a settlement offer that generally lies around $3,000, which means that the Hurt Locker makes can receive over 6 million dollars in damages.

While the complaint filed at a federal court in Florida is pretty standard, there are a few details that stand out when we look at the list of sued IP-addresses.

Firstly, all the defendants downloaded the film in 2010. This means that the movie studio has waited two years before filing a lawsuit against the alleged copyright infringers. On top of that, we see that all the 2,514 defendants are subscribers of the same Internet provider, Charter Communications.

It could be that the points above are related. For example, Voltage Pictures may know that Charter keeps IP-address records for more than two years while other ISPs don’t. Another reason for targeting Charter subscribers could be that the movie studio knows that the ISP is not going to object to handing over bulk subscriber details.

Whatever the case, this new lawsuit is worth keeping an eye on.

While The Hurt Locker is a prominent name, this mass-lawsuit is just one of many being filed every week. In total more than 250,000 alleged BitTorrent users have been targeted in the United States and this number continues to increase.

While most of the plaintiffs are adult film studios, more reputable brands such as the major book publisher Wiley & Sons have joined in as well. And last week the first game publisher filed a lawsuit as “Airbus X” makers Aerosoft GmbH targeted 50 downloaders.

Depending on the success of the current cases, the BitTorrent lawsuits may continue for years. Thus far there is no indication that the end is in sight.

IP-addresses of the accused downloaders

Source: Hurt Locker Makers Return to Sue 2,514 BitTorrent Users

The Pirate's Press

Tuesday, 24 April 2012