TorrentFreak Email Update

Pirate Bay Boosts “Sharing is Caring” Into The Music Charts

Posted: 27 Apr 2012 02:27 AM PDT

bull With help from the music industry’s biggest arch-rival The Pirate Bay, UK rapper Dan Bull is on course to get his first official ‘hit’ listed in various international single charts.

With a song titled “Sharing is Caring,” Bull is not exactly the type of artist music execs want to see in there. And that is exactly the point.

Dan Bull has no corporate promotion machine behind him. He has virtually no radio play and his music can’t be bought in bricks-and-mortar music stores. Instead, Bull is a self-confessed ‘pirate’ who relies on a crowd of like-minded people to earn a living.

“Sites such as The Pirate Bay do more to help unsigned artists than industry lobbyists ever have. Projects like The Promo Bay, which devotes The Pirate Bay's home page, free of charge, to any musician who applies, creates overnight success stories,” Bull explained.

So instead of signing away his rights to a major music label, Bull is sharing his work with the public for free. That has worked well for the rapper thus far, but to show just how powerful the Internet can be he’s now aiming for a listing in the international singles charts. Not for the recognition, but to make a statement.

“The singles charts are worthless as an indicator of quality, and artists needn't strive for the validation of reaching them. However, by taking a free song by an unsigned artist to the echelons normally reserved for the industry elite, I want to smash the glass ceiling and show that there is another way of doing things,” Bull said.

“We don't need the protection of ACTA, CISPA or any other acronym. As long as our internet is free, creativity will thrive.”

And with a healthy boost from The Pirate Bay earlier this week this plan might just succeed.

Raiding the music charts

After Bull introduced the goal here on TorrentFreak last Sunday, singles sales took off. When The Pirate Bay joined in a few hours later with a front page promotion, they skyrocketed. By Monday morning several versions of the “Sharing is Caring” single were on Amazon’s top 10 bestseller list.

Bull decided to release 10 different versions of the track because every individual download counts towards the eventual chart position of the single. In other words, the more versions people buy the higher “Sharing is Caring” will end up in the single charts.

After the initial boom the sales are now going on steadily. In the UK the most popular version of the single is currently listed at #75, with 4 others listed in the top 100 as well. In the rap category 8 versions are listed in the top 17, and in the Reggae chart “Sharing is Caring” is topping the chart.

#1 Reggae

bull

While the above stats are encouraging, there is still some work to be done before the official single charts are released this weekend. Since the Pirate Bay promo campaign has now ended, it is now up to the public to spread the message further.

Help is still needed.

“The campaign has been going really well, although it’s much harder than I imagined to compete with the big-budget campaigns behind people like Jay-Z and Calvin Harris. I need absolutely everyone who can to contribute in order to get a place in the ‘official’ charts,” Bull told TorrentFreak.

To encourage people to buy all 10 versions of the single, Bull is going to thank all mass-buyers in an upcoming music video.

Those who want to help out can go to the campaign page where all the paid versions of the tracks are listed. Please don’t feel obliged to do so, but if “Sharing is Caring” doesn’t appear in the single charts this weekend we’ll have to blame all the cheapskate pirates, and declare an official victory for the major music labels. Sort of.

Source: Pirate Bay Boosts “Sharing is Caring” Into The Music Charts

IMAGiNE BitTorrent Piracy Group Indicted, Face Years In Prison

Posted: 26 Apr 2012 09:47 AM PDT

During September 2011, TorrentFreak was tipped off that IMAGiNE, one of the Internet’s leading BitTorrent release groups, had been busted by the authorities following an Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation.

The year before IMAGiNE had launched their own private BitTorrent tracker that failed massively in its quest to stay under the radar. The site, UnleashTheNet (also known by its acronym UtN) attracted plenty of attention and it now appears it was the group’s Achilles’ heel.

As revealed by an indictment returned on April 18, 2012, and unsealed yesterday, four individuals have now been charged in the Eastern District of Virginia for their alleged roles in IMAGiNE.

Jeramiah Perkins, 39, of Portsmouth, Va., Gregory Cherwonik, 53, of New York, Willie Lambert, 57, of Pennsylvania, and Sean Lovelady, 27, of California, are all charged with one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and two counts of criminal copyright infringement.

Perkins, Cherwonik and Lambert are charged with two additional counts of criminal copyright infringement, and Perkins and Cherwonik are charged with a sixth count of criminal copyright infringement of a work being prepared for commercial distribution.

The indictment lists several movie titles that were reproduced, distributed and seeded on BitTorrent prior to the U.S. DVD release data including “The Green Hornet,” “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” and “Yogi Bear.” All films carried the group’s “IMAGiNE” tag.

According to the announcement from Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil MacBride and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton, Perkins, Cherwonik and Lambert were arrested Monday. Lovelady reported to the authorities yesterday.

"These four defendants are charged with serious intellectual property crimes. Through IMAGiNE, they allegedly sought to become the leading source of pirated movies on the Internet,” said Assistant Attorney General Breuer.

“This Justice Department, working with our partners at ICE, has made fighting intellectual property crime a top priority, and we will continue to bring cases against individuals and entities devoted to cheating consumers and undermining artistic pursuits."

Given the claims in the indictment and how the group’s activities are being portrayed, the IMAGiNE defendants are in serious trouble. First, it quite rightly points out that between 2009 and September 2011, IMAGiNE obtained video and audio for the latest movies from different sources, combined them, and then released them online.

But then, presumably because of their involvement with the UtN tracker, they are blamed for the subsequent infringing actions of UtN members. According to the indictment the four are responsible for the reproduction and distribution of “tens of thousands of illegal copies of copyrighted works.”

The maximum prison sentence for conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and for each count of criminal copyright infringement is five years in prison. All four defendants are scheduled to be arraigned on May 9, 2012.

As reported by TorrentFreak last year, rumors persist that IMAGiNE were led to the slaughter by a rival group with a grudge.

Source: IMAGiNE BitTorrent Piracy Group Indicted, Face Years In Prison

The Pirate's Press

Friday, 27 April 2012