TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Anti-Piracy Boss: TV Fans Are Unreasonable For Wanting Content Quicker
- Verizon Succesfully Defends Privacy of Alleged BitTorrent Pirates
- The Pirate Bay Celebrates Independence Day, Six Years After the Raid
| Anti-Piracy Boss: TV Fans Are Unreasonable For Wanting Content Quicker Posted: 01 Jun 2012 02:43 AM PDT
We found that more people are downloading the show compared to last year and that the number of weekly worldwide downloads is roughly the same as the number of viewers HBO has for the show in the U.S. Since the Internet is worldwide by nature, just like their US counterparts Australians were exposed to plenty of buzz about the show and were well aware of when the new series would premiere stateside. But unfortunately and for reasons best know to the entertainment industry, Aussies have to wait an additional week to view episodes of the show. Little surprise then that they turned to BitTorrent in droves, eventually topping the list with 10.1% of all Game of Thrones downloads. However, according to the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, the impatience being shown by fans of the show is “unreasonable.” Speaking at a University of Melbourne seminar last evening, AFACT boss Neil Gane conceded that TV and movie fans might be driven to piracy by delays, but when the same question was framed slightly differently, it proved problematic. Linking to TorrentFreak’s statistics, ITNews reports that they asked Gane if piracy rates were lower on shows that were fast-tracked to Australia. He was unable to answer. AFACT’s members have spent huge sums of money suing local ISP iiNet, yet appear to have a problem answering a fundamental question such as this. The answer, of course, (particularly given Gane’s earlier concession over delays) is that they do recognize that bringing shows more quickly to market in areas such as Australia will reduce piracy, but internal politics restrict them from doing so. But instead, Gane told the seminar that members of AFACT believe that fans of Game of Thrones are behaving unreasonably when they don’t want to wait an additional week to see the show. Predictably, Gane said that reductions in piracy need to be forced through tougher legislation, because he has research that says that no matter what the studios do, people will still pirate. That research, which is yet to be published, comes from the Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation, the outfit that pops up whenever the entertainment industry wants to prove a point, but doesn’t want anyone to know how that point was reached. When the research is published it will apparently show that 86% of ‘persistent’ downloaders and 74% of ‘casual’ downloaders turn to piracy due to cost. As highlighted in our earlier article, the exclusive nature of Game of Thrones will indeed be a factor in pushing people towards piracy. An article published in March titled “Help! I'm Being Forced To Pirate Game Of Thrones Against My Will!” illustrates one such scenario perfectly, with a fan wanting to buy the show but being forced to jump through hoops and pay for stuff he doesn’t want just to gain access. As we’ve said dozens of times before, making content easily accessible is about many things, not just release dates. Once that’s achieved that same content has to be made available at a fair price too, a concept that rarely matches the policies of ‘exclusive’ content providers. Source: Anti-Piracy Boss: TV Fans Are Unreasonable For Wanting Content Quicker
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| Verizon Succesfully Defends Privacy of Alleged BitTorrent Pirates Posted: 31 May 2012 02:11 PM PDT
In recent years more than a quarter million alleged BitTorrent users have been sued in federal courts. One of the copyright holders participating in this activity is book publisher John Wiley & Sons, who are famous for their “For Dummies” series. Wiley and others file mass-lawsuits against John Does who are only known by their IP-address. They then request a subpoena from the court to obtain the subscriber info connected to the IP-address, so they can contact the person in question with a request to settle the case in return for a sum of money. A lucrative business, which can bring in millions of dollars, but also one that has been criticized heavily. Earlier this month we reported that Verizon had refused to comply with a subpoena that was issued by a New York federal court. Among other reasons, the Internet provider doubted whether the subpoena would lead to the discovery of "relevant information." In other words, Verizon suggested that the person who pays for the account might not be the infringer. A valid point, especially since another New York judge stated recently that an IP-address does not identify a person, only a connection. Verizon also refused to hand over information in order to protect the privacy of its subscribers, which they feel is at stake in these ongoing mass-BitTorrent lawsuits. The company asserted that Wiley is seeking "information that is protected from disclosure by third parties' rights of privacy and protections guaranteed by the First Amendment." In addition, Verizon noted that the book publisher is demanding the information for improper purposes, namely "to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation." As expected, Wiley didn’t agree with the objections outlined above and asked the court to compel Verizon to comply with the subpoena. However, after a conference call between Wiley’s lawyer and the judge, this request was dropped. And that was not all. A recent letter to the court also reveals that Wiley has withdrawn the subpoenas it sent to Verizon. “Given the telephone conference with Your Honor on May 14, 2012, we withdraw our subpoenas to Verizon as well as our motion to compel Verizon to respond to those subpoenas,” the letter reads. Unfortunately, no further details are being made public, but it appears that Verizon successfully defended the privacy of the accused BitTorrent users. The above is great news for the many Verizon users who may end up in a similar position in the future. However, Verizon doesn’t seem to protest the subpoenas in all cases. In fact, earlier this month the company made a huge mistake as it handed over personal details of subscribers before it was allowed to. That said, the ISP sees more value in a system where users are warned and educated, as opposed to “harassed.” Verizon confirmed this stance last week when the company informed TorrentFreak that they see the “six-strikes” warning model as the right solution for the piracy problem. "We believe this program offers the best approach to the problem of illegal file sharing and, importantly, is one that respects the privacy and rights of our subscribers. It also provides a mechanism for helping people to find many great sources of legal content," Verizon told us. The “six strikes” piracy warning scheme is expected to be implemented later this year. This doesn’t mean that the mass-lawsuits will stop entirely, but it is apparent that Verizon does not intend to cooperate with these practices without putting up a fight. Source: Verizon Succesfully Defends Privacy of Alleged BitTorrent Pirates
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| The Pirate Bay Celebrates Independence Day, Six Years After the Raid Posted: 31 May 2012 08:53 AM PDT
However, looking at The Pirate Bay’s history it is actually a small miracle that the site is still around. Without a few essential keystrokes six years ago, The Pirate Bay may have not been here today. Those same keystrokes marked the beginning of an ongoing battle between a group of fun-loving geeks and a billion dollar entertainment industry. Let’s look back at what happened… May 31, 2006, less than three years after The Pirate Bay was founded, 65 Swedish police officers entered a datacenter in Stockholm. The officers were tasked with shutting down the largest perceived threat to the entertainment industry at the time – The Pirate Bay’s servers. In the months running up to the raid, Pirate Bay founders Gottfrid and Fredrik discovered they were under 24 hour surveillance by private investigators so they had an idea something was amiss. Then on the day of the raid, events rapidly unfolded. "I got a phone call like 10am in the morning, it was Anakata [Gottfrid],” recalled Fredrik. Gottfried said that there were police officers at their office and asked Fredrik to get down to the co-location facility and get rid of the 'incriminating evidence', although none of it, whatever it was, was related to The Pirate Bay. As Fredrik was leaving he suddenly had a hunch that the problems might be linked to their tracker, so he initiated a full backup of the site. At the co-location facility there were dozens of policemen, some in civilian clothing. Fredrik asked them: "Who are you? What are you doing here?" To which they responded: "Who are YOU? What are you doing here?" After questions back and forth, Fredrik eventually revealed who he was and a police officer responded, "Oh, we've been looking for you." Footage from The Pirate Bay raid While this sequence of events is almost comedic, that split-second decision to backup the site turned out to be the most pivotal moment in the site’s short history. Within days the site was restored online thanks to the backup. Without it, the situation today might look very different. This determination and defiance from the site’s operators set the tone for the years that followed. Learning from their experiences, safety measures were put in place. Backups were spread around the globe to mitigate any future attacks, and although the site has gone down for 24 hours or more since the raid, the culprit has often been technical or wild party related. After all their equipment was confiscated by the authorities in 2006, Peter, Fredrik and Gottfrid were escorted to the police station. During their questioning the Pirate Bay trio gave up very little information. Gottfrid quickly confessed to his crime – of killing the Swedish prime minister when he was 2 years old – but that was all they got. The raid eventually resulted in a lengthy investigation out of which the police generated 4000 pages of evidence against the people involved. The evidence was used by the prosecution during the Pirate Bay trial of 2009 and the appeal of 2010 where four people who were previously involved with the site were sentenced to jail time and significant fines. Their sentences were eventually made final early 2012, although that is not the end for all involved. Despite these sentences The Pirate Bay is still online, but not without change. The site’s tracker has since been removed and the default .torrent files were switched for magnet links to make the site less prone to outside attacks. The site also has more registered users than ever before. At the time of the raid The Pirate Bay had only a few hundred thousand registered users, but with the spotlight on the deviant Swedes, the user count soon skyrocketed. At the start of July 2006 the site broke the magical milestone of one million registered users, and that was just the beginning. Today, despite numerous court cases, court-ordered blockades by ISPs and two full trials at the Stockholm Court, The Pirate Bay has 5,741,691 registered members. Quite a remarkable achievement for a site that doesn't even require registration to download. Remembering their survival, The Pirate Bay today celebrates Pirate Independence Day, an initiative they started back in 2008. “To celebrate today, we encourage you to keep on sharing. Keep on uploading, downloading, swapping bits of information,” they announce. “Let today be the pirates independence day! Today we celebrate the victories we’ve had and the victories that will come. Today we celebrate that we’re united in our efforts. Keep on waving that black flag!” they conclude. Source: The Pirate Bay Celebrates Independence Day, Six Years After the Raid
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During May, TorrentFreak gathered 
Those who download and share copyrighted files through BitTorrent risk being monitored for various reasons. In the United States, those can also include legal action. 
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