TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Pirate Bay Ban Rockets Pirate Party Website Into The Big Time
- File-Sharing Is Linked to Depression, Researchers Find
- BitTorrent Piracy Boosts Music Sales, Study Finds
- IMAGiNE Member Pleads Guilty to Criminal Copyright Infringement
- Pirate Bay Under DDoS Attack From Unknown Enemy
| Pirate Bay Ban Rockets Pirate Party Website Into The Big Time Posted: 18 May 2012 02:17 AM PDT The Pirate Bay has suffered censorship in many countries across Europe but the recent steps against the torrent site in the UK have generated a much bigger response than similar actions previously taken against the site elsewhere. It’s not absolutely clear why this is the case but it’s certainly possible that the cross-continent shared understanding of the English language has brought the fear of censorship closer to home for all Internet users. Whatever the reason, the kick-back has been immense. Rather than sitting idly by, net activists all around the world have been doing their part to re-connect millions of Britains to The Pirate Bay, many by running their own proxy services. At the forefront of this effort are the UK Pirate Party.  Inspired by their Dutch counterparts who recently set up a proxy to bypass a blockade in the Netherlands, Pirate Party UK reacted similarly to the High Court-ordered ISP blockade in the UK. In parallel with the first ISP block from Virgin Media, PPUK responded by firing up their very own anti-censorship proxy. After being mentioned dozens of times in the media and featuring in the #1 position on the PirateReverse information site, PPUK’s proxy service quickly became the weapon of choice for UK Internet users wanting to unblock the galaxy’s most-resilient torrent site. The effect on their web presence has been nothing short of dramatic.  Although impressive, it’s worth pointing out that the graph above doesn’t tell the whole story. Just over 3 weeks ago the Pirate Party UK website was listed way outside the top 100,000 most-visted websites in the UK. Today, as a direct result of their response to Pirate Bay censorship, the site is listed by Alexa as the UK’s 1,550th most popular website. According to PPUK’s Harry Percival, during a single 24 hour period last week the site received more than 1.8m hits. Given the unavailability of the Pirate Bay website over the past 48 hours, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the PPUK site’s ranking has increased again. “Whenever the government tries to break the Internet we get a massive boost,” PPUK Culture & Media spokesperson Andrew Robinson told TorrentFreak. “Whether it’s the PirateBay blocking, the CCDP snooper’s charter, or the latest idea for a porn morality filter, it seems like traditional parties just don’t get it – and people are starting to realize that you can’t just ignore this stuff, it really does have an impact on freedoms, civil liberties and innovation. That’s why the Pirates, both here in the UK and worldwide, are attracting more and more support. “Another way of looking at it is: the BPI’s high court action has sent a very clear message to politicians of all parties: Voters love file sharing. If you want to be massively popular, you should support file sharing too,” Robinson concludes. The big question is what happens next. Just over the North Sea in the Netherlands Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN obtained a far-reaching court ruling which banned the Dutch Pirate Party from not only running a proxy, but also telling people where to go to unblock Pirate Bay. Will the members of the BPI, the companies behind the UK block, go back to court in an effort to silence the Pirates? That’s certainly a possibility but even if they were successful, given the response to censorship thus far there are plenty of people prepared to take up the slack. Source: Pirate Bay Ban Rockets Pirate Party Website Into The Big Time
|
| File-Sharing Is Linked to Depression, Researchers Find Posted: 17 May 2012 02:40 PM PDT
The paper carries the self-explanatory title “Associating Depressive Symptoms in College Students with Internet Usage Using Real Internet Data” and will be published in an upcoming issue of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine. In brief, the researchers monitored how 216 undergraduates at Missouri S&T used the campus network. They then linked these findings to the results of a self-rated depression scale (CES-D survey). What they found was that the use of peer-to-peer octets, packets and duration is positively correlated with depressive symptoms. In other words, people who are “depressed” are more avid file-sharers than those who don’t show depressive symptoms. According to lead researcher Dr. Sriram Chellappan, the findings are unique among their kind. “The study is believed to be the first that uses actual Internet data, collected unobtrusively and anonymously, to associate Internet usage with signs of depression,” he told Psys. “Previous research on Internet usage has relied on surveys, which are ‘a far less accurate way’ of assessing how people use the Internet.” It is unclear what the direction of the relation between depressive symptoms and file-sharing is. The MPAA and RIAA may use the results to claim that file-sharing is bad for your mental health, but this can’t be concluded from the current findings. Aside from heavy P2P use, people with depressive symptoms also use online chat more, and spend more time sending email. HTTP traffic and streaming were not correlated to depressive symptoms. As a category file-sharers are in good company as previous studies have linked depressive symptoms to online shopping, excessive online video viewing, social networking, online gambling, and excessive late-night Internet use. Where things do get scary is when Dr. Sriram Chellappan suggests that it might be a good idea to develop applications that scan people’s Internet use for these risky behaviors. “The software would be a cost-effective and an in-home tool that could proactively prompt users to seek medical help if their Internet usage patterns indicate possible depression. The software could also be installed on campus networks to notify counselors of students whose Internet usage patterns are indicative of depressive behavior,” he explains. This goes a bit too far, and is also uncalled for as there is absolutely no evidence that even a decent percentage of all avid P2P users show depressive symptoms. That a researcher even suggests this is baffling. Not everything has to be monitored and checked. Most people just want their monthly invoice from their ISP, not a complete mental health report. Or perhaps i’m just being far too negative… Source: File-Sharing Is Linked to Depression, Researchers Find
|
| BitTorrent Piracy Boosts Music Sales, Study Finds Posted: 17 May 2012 04:58 AM PDT
None of these researchers, however, used a large sample of accurate download statistics from a BitTorrent tracker to examine this topic. This missing element motivated economist Robert Hammond, Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University, to conduct his own research. In a paper titled “Profit Leak? Pre-Release File Sharing and the Music Industry” Hammond published his findings. Between May 2010 and January 2011 the professor collected a variety of download statistics of new albums that were released on the largest private BitTorrent tracker dedicated to music. He then used this data in combination with sales numbers to construct a model that predicts what the causal effect of piracy on music sales is. The results are unique in its kind and reveal that BitTorrent piracy causes an increase in album sales. “I isolate the causal effect of file sharing of an album on its sales by exploiting exogenous variation in how widely available the album was prior to its official release date. The findings suggest that file sharing of an album benefits its sales. I don’t find any evidence of a negative effect in any specification, using any instrument,” Hammond concludes in his paper. In total the sample includes 1,095 albums from 1,075 artists. The research focuses on albums that leaked before their official release. The music industry often states that “curbing pre-release piracy is a particular priority for the recording industry.” These releases are also the focus of criminal proceedings against pirate sites both in the US and the UK. However, according to the research, sales may actually be hurt by going after these sites. Hammond’s findings suggest that piracy itself acts as a form of advertising similar to radio play and media campaigns, where more downloads result in a moderate increase in sales. That said, the effect described in the paper is a moderate one. Taking all factors into account Hammond finds that an album that leaks a month in advance results in 59.6 additional sales. To some degree the results are surprising, as other studies have found a negative relation between music piracy and sales. However, Hammond notes that none of these studies had access to such detailed and precise download statistics which make it possible to go beyond the usual correlation. Also, unlike several other studies, Hammond’s focuses on album releases instead of single songs. “I focus on how file sharing of an individual album helps or hurts that album’s sales. The question of interest here is whether an individual artist should expect her sales to decline given wider pre-release availability of the album in file-sharing networks. I find that the answer is no.” Another unique finding reported in the paper is that popular artists profit more from piracy than less established acts. For smaller artists there is no effect of pre-release piracy on sales. This contradicts older research. Hammond, however, notes that his data is richer than in the other studies, and therefore more accurate. In addition, we’d argue that the focus on pre-releases may also account for the missing effect on new artists. While the reported data appears to be solid, the question has to be asked how representative the data set is for all music piracy on BitTorrent. The private tracker in question has more than 150,000 users, who are almost exclusively more than average music fans. Overall, the paper offers a unique and unprecedented analysis of BitTorrent piracy on music sales. It clearly disputes the music industry argument that pre-release piracy hurts album sales, and suggests that BitTorrent piracy can act as promotion. Source: BitTorrent Piracy Boosts Music Sales, Study Finds
|
| IMAGiNE Member Pleads Guilty to Criminal Copyright Infringement Posted: 16 May 2012 02:19 PM PDT Last September, IMAGiNE, one of the Internet's leading BitTorrent release groups, stopped distributing new films. This immediately sparked speculation that the authorities were onto them, and last month the confirmation came that this was indeed the case. Three weeks ago four members of the group were arrested and charged with several counts of criminal copyright infringement. Aside from reproducing and releasing copyrighted films on their private tracker UnleashTheNet, they also “capped” films at local movie theaters.  With his guilty plea Lovelady faces a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, plus damages that might be claimed by copyright holders. In the plea agreement Lovelady further agrees to “cooperate fully and truthfully with the United States, and provide all information known to the defendant regarding any criminal activity as requested by the government.” This might affect the cases against the other IMAGiNE members who have not pleaded guilty according to the arraignment sheets. In addition to the guilty plea, an overview of “facts” which Lovelady signed as true and accurate gives an overview of some of the copyright infringements that took place, that UnleashTheNet was operated by IMAGiNE, and that the group also sold releases. In furtherance of the conspiracy and to provide a platform for IMAGiNE Group members to share and to ready copies of motion pictures and other copyrighted works for dissemination over the Internet, in July and August 2010 a conspirator in the Eastern District of Virginia took a series of steps to facilitate the use of a new website for the IMAGiNE Group, titled “unleashthe.net.” In the Eastern District of Virginia and elsewhere, this conspirator: (a) rented computer servers in France and elsewhere for use by the IMAGiNE Group and to host its website; (b) registered domain names for use b the IMAGiNE Group; and (c) opened email and PayPal accounts to receive donations and payments from persons downloading or buying IMAGiNE Group releases of infringing or “pirated” copies of motion pictures and other copyrighted works and to fund payments for computer servers. The same document also reveals that the MPAA was the main motivator behind the investigation. “Following contact from a representative of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in March 2010, investigators with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement(Homeland Security Investigations or HSI Norfolk) began investigating an Internet release group, identified as the IMAGiNE Group,” the document reads. This is identical to the case against Megaupload, where the MPAA was also the driving force. And there are more similarities. Both cases are being handled by US Attorney Neil MacBride, who was also on the NinjaVideo case. Considering MacBride’s past work as Vice President of Anti-Piracy for the lobby group BSA, he is probably well-connected with the MPAA. Thus far MacBride and his team have booked some successes in the NinjaVideo case. Five people connected to the site were arrested last year and four received jail sentences. Lovelady and the others have been released from custody and await their sentencing, which is scheduled for this fall. Source: IMAGiNE Member Pleads Guilty to Criminal Copyright Infringement
|
| Pirate Bay Under DDoS Attack From Unknown Enemy Posted: 16 May 2012 06:12 AM PDT
At the time of writing The Pirate Bay has been inaccessible to most of the world for nearly 24 hours and our ‘inbox’ is suffering. But it appears to be the timing of the downtime that has caused more people than usual to panic. The root lies in the recent court-ordered censorship of The Pirate Bay in the UK. The country’s leading ISPs are required to block the site so millions of people were already expecting to have trouble accessing the domain. What they didn’t anticipate was the failure of the many published workarounds to resupply access to the site. For those to work the site itself has to be working properly and currently it is not. While TPB is used to being censored by courts and ISPs, it is a little less used to being blacked-out by other means. TorrentFreak is informed by a Pirate Bay insider that the site is currently being subjected to a DDoS attack rendering it unavailable in many parts of the world. Now, while we’re informed that the problem might be mitigated during the next few hours, the timing of this attack against the site is either ironic, ‘interesting’ or at the very least coincidental, depending on your viewpoint. Just last week, The Pirate Bay openly criticized elements of the ‘Anonymous’ collective for carrying out a DDoS attack on Virgin Media, the first UK ISP to block access to The Pirate Bay. “We do NOT encourage these actions. We believe in the open and free internets, where anyone can express their views. Even if we strongly disagree with them and even if they hate us,” said TPB in response to the DDoS attack against Virgin. “So don't fight them using their ugly methods. DDOS and blocks are both forms of censorship.” Right now, whoever is attacking The Pirate Bay has achieved what no copyright or governmental authority anywhere in the world has – an almost complete disruption of the site’s operations on a global basis with no court order required. But despite the DDoS there are still ways for people to access the site. A handful of the proxies set up to circumvent the ISP blockades still appear to work and, when all else fails, the crazy methods still work too. Source: Pirate Bay Under DDoS Attack From Unknown Enemy
|
Nearly every day we write about negative associations towards file-sharing, and today is no different. A new academic paper now reveals how file-sharing is linked to depressive symptoms.
For more than a decade researchers have been looking into the effects of music piracy on the revenues of the record industry, with mixed results. 
Although Pirate Bay downtime happens a handful of times each month, it rarely persists for more than a few hours. When it goes beyond that the steady flow of reader emails to TorrentFreak quickly transforms itself into a torrent.| You are subscribed to email updates from TorrentFreak To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment