TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Greek Court Orders ISP Blockades of ‘Pirate’ Music Sites
- Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
- Who’s Pirating Game of Thrones, And Why?
- Music Pirates Will Be Unmasked, Despite Band’s Protests
| Greek Court Orders ISP Blockades of ‘Pirate’ Music Sites Posted: 21 May 2012 04:00 AM PDT 2012 is proving to be momentous year for those looking to censor the Internet on copyright grounds. With nationwide blockades of The Pirate Bay biting in many countries including both the Netherlands and the UK, it was only a question of time before the phenomenon spread further still. Today we can report that Greece is the latest country to walk down the controversial path of web censorship for the protection of intellectual property. The Athens First Instance Court has just handed down a ruling which orders the country’s ISPs to begin censoring a pair of sites the music industry says are infringing their copyrights on a grand scale. The ruling is based on Article 64A of law 2121/1993 which states that “Rightsholders may apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe copyright or related rights.” A similar provision in Section 97A of the UK’s Copyright, Designs and Patents Act led to The Pirate Bay being blocked there earlier this month. Interestingly, neither of the sites to be blocked in Greece is The Pirate Bay, and the unusual features don’t stop there. The first site to be censored is Ellinadiko.com, a music sharing forum that was once very popular with locals. We’re referring to the site in the past tense since it appears to have shut down.  The second site to be blocked is Music-Bazaar.com, a Russian operated and hosted ‘AllofMP3′-style webstore selling MP3s at bargain basement prices. These sites are a thorn in the side of the recording industry but operate with both impunity and arguable legality in Russia. The blocks will be initiated in two ways. ISPs will have to tamper with their DNS records so that subscribers trying to access the sites will be redirected elsewhere, probably to an ISP holding page. Second, and to thwart people trying to visit the sites without the use of a domain name at all, the IP addresses for the sites will be filtered out. However, according to discussion on Greek file-sharing forums, the IP addresses listed in the court order are no longer in use by either site having been changed a while ago. Following similar actions taken by the Dutch and UK Pirate parties, the Greek Pirate Party are indicating that they are “ready to implement any lawful technological measure to ensure freedom of communication, speech and exchange ideas online and in society.” Source: Greek Court Orders ISP Blockades of ‘Pirate’ Music Sites
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| Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent Posted: 21 May 2012 02:40 AM PDT
John Carter is the most downloaded movie this week. The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise. RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.
Source: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
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| Who’s Pirating Game of Thrones, And Why? Posted: 20 May 2012 02:31 PM PDT
Statistics gathered by TorrentFreak reveal that more people are downloading the show compared to last year, when it came in as the second most downloaded TV-show of 2011. The number of weekly downloads worldwide is about equal to the estimated viewers on HBO in the U.S., but why? One of the prime reasons for the popularity among pirates is the international delay in airing. In Australia, for example, fans of the show have to wait a week before they can see the latest episode. So it’s hardly a surprise that some people are turning to BitTorrent instead. And indeed, if we look at the top countries where Game of Thrones is downloaded, Australia comes out on top with 10.1% of all downloads (based on one episode). But delays are just part of the problem. The fact that the show is only available to those who pay for an HBO subscription doesn’t help either. This explains why hundreds of thousands of people from the U.S. prefer to use BitTorrent. The same is true for Canada and the United Kingdom, placed third and fourth in the list of pirate kings. If we look at the ranking of cities, London takes the lead followed by Sydney, Melbourne and Amsterdam. To a certain degree one could claim that HBO is to blame for Game of Throne’s success on BitTorrent. They want to keep access to the show “exclusive” and even Netflix wasn’t able to buy the rights no matter what they offered. Whether this is the best decision in terms of revenue is hard to tell, but it’s clear that HBO prefers more exclusiveness over less piracy. And who knows, maybe they even sell HBO subscriptions to BitTorrent downloaders in the long run. The reasons above are not exhaustive of course, there are many more reasons why people turn to BitTorrent. For some it’s become a matter of habit that will be hard to break, no matter where they live and how good the legal alternative is. If there are any Game of Thrones pirates reading this, let us know what drives you in the comments.
Source: Who’s Pirating Game of Thrones, And Why?
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| Music Pirates Will Be Unmasked, Despite Band’s Protests Posted: 20 May 2012 08:01 AM PDT
Two issues made this case stand out. One, this is the first time sharers of music have been sued since the RIAA ended its infamous campaign. Two, the suing of All Shall Perish’s fans is being done without the band’s permission. Indeed, the band’s label, Nuclear Blast, didn’t even tell ASP that they’d signed over the band’s copyrights to Panama-based World Digital Rights so that they could sue. TorrentFreak has kept in touch with ASP manager Ryan Downey who has been hoping that the lawsuit would be withdrawn. However, we discovered that World Digital Rights have persisted with their lawsuit and earlier this month were granted permission from Judge Sheri Polster Chappell to obtain the identities of 80 alleged file-sharers from US ISPs. We informed Downey of the development and he and the band’s lawyer went away to see what could be done. “The band’s attorney made it clear to the licensing people [at Nuclear Blast Records] that the band wanted no part in lawsuits against fans. The industry is changing, illegal downloading is troublesome for bands and of course, for record labels, but whatever the solution will be – streaming, subscription, Kickstarter, new ways of looking at it entirely, whatever comes about – the band and I are in agreement (as is their lawyer) that SUING MUSIC FANS SURE ISN’T IT,” Downey told TorrentFreak. But of course, when this story broke last month Nuclear Blast were already aware that the band didn’t support suing fans yet either couldn’t or wouldn’t stop World Digital Rights persisting with the lawsuit. Clearly the band’s protests needed underlining. “The licensing folks at Nuclear Blast in Germany took all of this to mean we wanted them to prevent World Digital Rights from pursuing any new actions / claims. I don’t know how we could have been more clear, but, we emphasized again, after receiving your email and being made aware of these new developments, that what we were saying all along was DISMISS ANY AND ALL LAWSUITS AGAINST ALL SHALL PERISH FANS,” Downey told us. Then this week there appeared to be a breakthrough. “We were informed [Wednesday] by Nuclear Blast that they would tell World Digital to dismiss all of this. Furthermore, we have pressed (yet again) to ensure the copyright registration returns to the band as owners of all recordings, as nobody else had the right to register the band’s copyrights as World Digital seems to have either done or attempted at some point.” But while Downey has answered questions and been very responsive, the same cannot be said about Nuclear Blast. Request for comment sent to several members of staff, from those in the licensing department to the label owner, were not responded to. That said, the silence is not unexpected. While Downey has gone out of his way to be unfailingly polite when speaking to us about Nuclear Blast, using terms such as “hard working”, “passionate”, “communicative” and “supportive”, it’s impossible to overlook the fact that someone there transferred the band’s copyrights to a troll without even having the courtesy to mention it. And that troll continued with the lawsuit despite knowing the band were against it. The best outcome now is that the whole thing goes away, but it’s still possible that World Digital Rights will persist and people will get settlement demands through the mail. If that happens, recipients will have someone to turn to. “The band, their attorney and myself have and will continue to take any steps to protect their fans, yes, even those who file trade,” Downey told us. “The band would prefer that their fans legally purchase, stream or otherwise enjoy their music. But they definitely have not, will not and do not wish to sue their fans.” If any reader receives a letter from World Digital Rights, write to us at the usual address. Source: Music Pirates Will Be Unmasked, Despite Band’s Protests
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This week there are three newcomers in our chart. 
In a few hours a new episode of Game of Thrones will appear on BitTorrent, and a few days later between 3 and 4 million people will download this unofficial release. 
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