We do not link to actual torrent files because linking to files that link to files that may be copyrighted is something that might get us in trouble.

The data is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of May 06, 2008…

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Most Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk19)

During April, TorrentFreak interviewed Merrin after his site was shutdown in error following a blunder by an anti-piracy outfit. Despite this setback, Merrin appeared full of optimism for the future so it’s particularly sad that we hand over to ‘Eazbak’ from MVGroup to bring us tragic news:

“It is with a heavy heart that I write this, Merrin the founder of MVGroup.org passed away suddenly on Monday 5th May. He had been ill for sometime but the extent of his illness was not known to the staff , his family or his personal friends. His passing will leave an enormous void at MVGroup.

I was asked to write something here about Merrin, but to be honest I just can’t face it, the thought of doing so is just too painful. So I’ll simply add an abridged version of a post Merrin made at MVGroup some time long, long ago, it will give you a much better insight into who he was and what he was all about than anything I could have written.”

How did MVGroup start and what are our aims, hmm, perhaps a potted history is in order.

Summer 2001 was when I did my first rip, it wasn’t MVGroup back then it was just under my tag. Went well, was released onto the edonkey network with some success. It happened to be Walking With Beasts. I had been given the DVD’s as a present. I always made a point of watching what I could on BBC on tv, but realised after the reaction I got to my first release that there was very little of this kind of thing floating around on the net back then. Don’t get me wrong, I love ST or 24 as much as the next person but I knew that I wanted to give something back to the community that I had taken from for so long. The best way to do this seemed to be to me to release the things that I enjoyed, but couldn’t find, working on the principle that if I liked them there had to be more people out there that did too.

MVGroup was formed in about October of 2002. I talked DarkRain (Vittorio in those days, hence MVGroup, MVGroup also being a tag we had affected once or twice on game rips we had done) into helping me out with rips and supplying DVD’s, we were initially nothing more than a loose association releasing rips on FileNexus.

We then started to generate a bit of interest and we were given (alright I nagged the FN admins) our own section to call home on the FN forums.

Myself and DarkRain had drifted further apart both in real-life and online and MVGroup was looking like it was about to die from lack of time, interest, and releases. It was at this point that I, for want of something better to do, decided that maybe I would put some of our old releases out using the Bitttorrent protocol rather than ed2k. I quickly put a few releases out that way and generated some interest from the BT community. My interest re-piqued I realised that there was no way of releasing on BT using our sections on either FN or FTi that we had by now. The answer was our own webpage.

I got to work on a simple HTML based site on my ISP webspace, that was enough to relight DarkRain’s interest in MVG too and we started cranking releases out again on both BT and ed2k. Funnily enough it didn’t take long before my ISP were getting unhappy with a p2p site on their space. It was then that this current site started to evolve. I decided I better learn how to use proper website tools like php and sql db backends etc. The whole site was put together to a first usable state in about 24 hours straight by just myself lol, that was a day and a no mistake..

Then we started recruiting like-minded individuals that would help us to release and spread the material that we were now known for.

So, what are we trying to achieve, well it isn’t notoriety, it isn’t fame, it isn’t anything other than a sincere desire to make sure that as many people as possible have their horizons broadened by the quality material that we release.

After all we do have a tagline ‘An education in p2p’

….and it ain’t just there because it’s snappy.

So what of the future of the MVGroup tracker? m06166, a close friend of Merrin, explains: “There will be no closing down and no major changes are intended. We will not change the policy of MVGroup of sharing knowledge with the world without ratios for free. Ever.”

The final word from Eazbak: “Our mission now is to make sure that Merrin’s legacy continues, not just this year or the next but for as long as we can possibly do so, the staff is united, we have DVDs ready to rip, files ready to seed, watch out for an MVGroup tagged file on a tracker near you soon!”

Anyone wishing to pay their respects may do so here (registration needed, tracker signups open)

In memory of Merrin - 1976-2008

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

BitTorrent Community Mourns as Tracker Founder Passes Away

“Since the dawn of time, human beings have felt the need to share - from food to art. Sharing is part of the human condition. A person who does not share is not only selfish, but bitter and alone,” Coelho told TorrentFreak, explaining why he decided to share his books for free.

His urge to share received quite a lot of attention after Coelho started a weblog with the name Pirate Coelho a few months ago. His motivation? He wanted people to have the opportunity to ‘try’ his books for free, but he knew some of his publishers wouldn’t agree right away. So, he took matters into his own hands and put his own books onto BitTorrent, FTP sites and Rapidshare.

“There was a strong reaction when I mentioned the site at Digital Life Design, back in January 2008,” Coelho explains. “The blog was out there for a while, but it seems that nobody from the publishing world was paying attention to it. When I spoke about it, all eyes were aimed at the site. From that moment on, based on actual numbers, the publishers not only accepted it, but helped me.”

“Harper Collins, for example, decided to offer a new book of mine every month, for free reading.” This, together with the pirated copies worked out really well, and the book sales went up. “If you go to the New York Times Bestseller list, you’ll see that the Alchemist jumped to the #6, and the Witch of Portobello is in the extended list.”

BitTorrent is one of the filesharing networks Coelho uses to share his books. “I am using it now, while doing this interview,” he says, and he encourages other authors to follow his lead. “The ultimate goal of a writer is to be read. Money comes later.” This is of course easy to say for an author who has already sold millions of copies, but Coelho goes even further, and argues that ’sharing’ books will actually help upcoming authors to sell more books. It is a win-win situation.

“I do think that when a reader has the possibility to read some chapters, he or she can always decide to buy the book later,” Coelho says, indicating that it is not a lost sale. On the other hand, the Internet makes it easier for new authors to publish content, and get people to read their work. “Nowadays, people are being encouraged to write, and start blogs, the book industry already found a few new talents on Internet,” Coelho says.

When we asked Paulo about the difference between book piracy and the unauthorized copying of music and movies, he told us that it is difficult to compare, since it is easier to consume movies and music digitally. Most people still prefer to read a real book however, pirated ebooks are more often used to preview. This can always change in the future, but for now Coelho is not impressed by the ebook reading devices that are out there, and many of his readers seem to agree.

“A (real) book is easy to carry, easy to read anywhere. Reading a book on a monitor on the other hand is very tiresome, and it would be even more expensive to print (considering cartridge prices) than to buy a paperback,” he says. What the movie and music industry can learn from Coelho, however, is that availability is of the essence, and restrictions will only lead to reactance.

Coelho fully adopted all the possibilities the Internet offers, as he uses his weblog, Myspace, FaceBook, Flickr and even Twitter to interact with his readers. “I want to share everything I write, from my books to my blogs.”

He recently started a new experiment, as he encouraged his readers to make a movie based on one of his books. When “The Witch of Portobello” was released, Hollywood came rushing in with movie deals, but Coelho told his agent: “it is time to start a new adventure!”

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Best-Selling Author Turns Piracy into Profit

The campaign’s leaflet (pdf) is distributed through schools and colleges, libraries, record stores, teaching portals and websites in 21 countries. It advises kids and parents about the dangers of filesharing, and advises them to use the legal music online stores, which are listed on pro-music.org, with the aim of keeping kids safe online.

IFPI proudly announced their new campaign a few weeks ago, writing: “The campaign comes as millions of people take advantage of the explosion of new ways of accessing music digitally, but still lack clarity on safety and legal issues, on finding legitimate sites, on the basics of copyright and on how to unpick the jargon of digital music.”

IFPI has always been concerned with the safety of children, and on pro-music.org they maintain a list of download stores that are ’safe’ to use. I was of course curious about these legal stores, and since i’m from the Netherlands, I decided to give the Dutch legal stores a try. This turned out to be an interesting experiment.

To my surprise, the first 4 sites on the list were all gone, some had quit, and others redirected to websites that didn’t sell any music. Even worse, commodore.nl -the first site on the list- served ads for a scam site that sells filesharing software.

I finally got something that looked like a music store when I got to the fifth link, dance-tunes. However, when I searched for the latest Radiohead album, nothing came up. The site only has a few mp3s, and nothing of my choice.

The journey continued, and with sixth site, download.nl, I finally found some good music. Interestingly however, the songs I found were not for sale. Instead, I was advised to download LimeWire, Shareaza and Kazaa Lite. This may indeed sound a little confusing, but the IFPI apparently wants kids to use filesharing software after all.

So, to sum up my legal music experiment. I tried the first 6 sites advised by IFPI, 4 didn’t sell any music, the fifth only listed a few songs, and the sixth website I tried advised me to install LimeWire or Kazaa. It gets even worse further down the list where the kids end up at sites that sell hardcore adult movies.

Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media said about the new campaign: “The new guide is a very good example of an initiative that offers simple, practical advice to parents and teachers to keep young people safe and legal while enjoying music on the Internet.

I guess she didn’t try it herself.

Screenshot of a music “store” promoted by IFPI

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

IFPI Advises Kids to Use LimeWire and Kazaa

A lot of things have happened since the Shareaza domain was hijacked. Through TorrentFreak, the Shareaza development team gives an exclusive update on the current situation:

Dear friends and supporters,

The Shareaza Development Team would like to extend our thanks to all of you for your contributions towards our Legal Defense Fund. As you will remember, our project’s identity was appropriated late last year by the recording industry funded Discordia Ltd. shell company and handed over to the recording industry “approved” iMesh for commercial exploitation.

To that end, we are today announcing that we have legal representation and will be contesting the trademark application on our name and identity taken out by Discordia Ltd. After that, we’ll be looking to get our old domain back from the people who threatened, bullied and intimidated the team member holding it on the project’s behalf and who are now using as the gateway to their deceptive business model.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Software Freedom Law Centre, the EFF and Richard Stallman for their help and assistance in this unfortunate matter and also for their recognition of this new threat being faced by free software projects the world over.

If you’d like to help us in our fight to regain control of our identity, we welcome all donations to our Legal Defense Fund. You can use our ChipIn account here to donate safely.

So will this all be long, drawn out and very boring? Quite possibly. Are we going to sit back, lick our wounds and wait for the lawyers to sort it all out?

Heck no!

In fact, The Shareaza Development team is also announcing today that we’ve started work on Shareaza 3.0. Put simply, we’re not going to let the identity thieves slow us down at all.

Shareaza 3.0 will be a significant milestone in Shareaza’s long history. For a start we’re switching to the brand new QT 4.4 application development framework. This will allow us a lot more flexibility for a redesign of Shareaza’s network core, making the current Gnutella, Gnutella2 and ED2K networks more modular. We’re also getting rid of the deprecated MFC code to make 3.0 more plug-in friendly and many of the existing features our users know and love will also be re-built with portability in mind.

The even bigger news is that we’re scrapping our current implementation of BitTorrent and will be using the libtorrent libraries as our base for torrent support in the 3.0 release. Shareaza’s BitTorrent implementation is long overdue for a revamp and while many of it’s features were revolutionary at the time (Shareaza was the first client to experiment with decentralized torrents for example) the development team realizes that its time to bring BT support into line with the modern torrent scene.

Developers with some spare time and a desire to get their hands dirty playing with the new QT 4.4 on an existing code base are welcome to stop by our developers IRC channel for a chat.

Once again, we send our thanks all the Shareaza users and supporters out there and invite Discordia, iMesh and the recording industry monopoly to drop the trademark application and return our domain name before you embarrass yourselves any further. We’re fighting back!

Inquiries can be made via our forums here

Kind regards,

Shareaza Community

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Shareaza Stands Up To Scammers: “We’re fighting back!”

We conclude ‘court week’ at TorrentFreak with the happy news that torrent.is has remained victorious in its legal battles. At the end of March, we explained how the case was dismissed, saying it was likely the plaintiffs (the Icelandic movie and music industry), would be likely to appeal to the Icelandic Supreme Court.

This did indeed happen, and today, the Supreme Court announced a ruling (Icelandic) in favor of torrent.is, awarding it an additional 400,000 ISK ($5025 US or 3250 Euros) on top of the 500,000 ISK awarded in March.

The case was dismissed because of legal formalities. It would appear that some of the plaintiffs in the case were found to have no legal grounds to pursue an injunction. When the prosecution team tried to switch plaintiffs in order to save the case, the Supreme Court flat out dismissed it.

Speaking to TorrentFreak, Torrent.is owner, Svavar Kjarrval, said he was “very happy with the decision,” adding he hopes to have the site open on the 16th. “However, the executive of one of the plaintiffs [SMÁÍS] claims he will use any means available to stop the site from reopening. I don’t know if that will succeed or not.”

A spokesman of SMAIS was quoted by mlb.is as saying “This verdict is sad, and it is incredible to deny copyright holders seeking their rights. This is an unnecessary adherence on legal formalities in this case, rather than taking on the subject as it should. There still has not been a formal verdict in this case and it seems to be hard to get a judge to review the facts of the case itself, that is, the copyright laws themselves.”

However, before people rush to host torrent sites there, Svavar has a warning. “This ruling doesn’t state that torrent sites are legal so there is still no certainty as to their legality” Hosting a BitTorrent site still is in the “grey zone” for now, but that doesn’t stop Torrent.is from reopening.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Victorious BitTorrent Tracker to Return

Anti-piracy outfits, like all organizations fighting against massive odds, rely heavily on the media to amplify their message. Whether it’s a some fringe group exploding a trash can to get attention or someone chaining himself to a prominent building in protest, using the media is relatively cheap and effective. Organizations like the RIAA and IFPI like to play the fear card to reduce file-sharing so a nasty malware attack on P2P networks, affecting up to 27% of tested PCs this week, is a dream come true for them, as they continue to spread their message that P2P networks are nothing but trouble.

However, in a testament to its structure and security, BitTorrent is almost immune from these type of attacks and that is why you never hear the RIAA and IFPI talk about viruses and BitTorrent in the same announcement. In terms of sharing files and avoiding malware, BitTorrent does really well.

This recent malware attack revolved around people downloading files which were renamed to look like music and movies, but instead engineer a situation where lots of other stuff gets installed on the host PC, causing all sorts of problems. While viewing some of the filenames listed by McAfee, I had to remind myself that I was a novice once too - but it was still a stretch for me to believe so many people would download files that look like these:

preview-t-3545425-adult.mpg
preview-t-3545425-changing times earth wind .mp3
preview-t-3545425-meet bambi in kings harem.mp3
preview-t-3545425-middle eastern chick.mpg
preview-t-3545425-theme godfather.mp3
t-3545425-bentley bizzle.mp3
t-3545425-haloween special.mp3
t-3545425-just got lucky.mp3
t-3545425-peanut butter jelly amende.mp3

The good news is that the chances of these type of files appearing on BitTorrent are very low as trackers have moderators who remove such junk, something which is largely impossible on Gnutella (LimeWire) and eMule (ed2k). As long as the ‘infected’ users keep this stuff in their shared folder, there is little that can be done to stop it spreading. If they don’t clean this stuff out, no-one will, and it’s in this department BitTorrent comes out tops - again.

First of all, BitTorrent isn’t a ‘folder sharing’ client like LimeWire or KaZaA, which means that the user needs to use a torrent site to distribute (publish) his torrent. If the content is legitimate (and there are very few rules in most places, save obviously illegal material) the .torrent file will be up for all to download, with links to malware and viruses mostly filtered out by humans - otherwise known as ‘mods’ or ‘moderators’.

BitTorrent has thousands of hard working and largely unpaid moderators, who work tirelessly to make sure that files like these don’t make it to the BitTorrent user’s computer. In reality, files presented like the ones above could never slip by the site mods, they would see them a mile away and remove them quickly.

BitTorrent isn’t 100% malware free but compared to Gnutella and ed2k, it is astonishingly healthy and that is largely down to the strength of the system and the mods, who work non-stop behind the scenes to keep BitTorrent an enjoyable experience.

For the few small things that slip through the net, try our guides.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

BitTorrent Shrugs Off Massive Malware Attack

The movie titles they are claiming damages for are Harry Potter, Syriana, The Pink Panther and Walk the Line and the 13 episodes of the popular TV-show Prison Break. MPAA demands 222,50 kronor ($37) for each download. For Harry Potter, 261,50 kronor ($43) and for the first season of Prison Break 416 kronor ($68).

‘The Pink Panther’ is the most popular title among Pirate Bay users; the least popular, by a mile, is ‘Syriana’. The movies have been downloaded 49,593 and 3,679 times respectively, according to MAQS, the law firm which represents MPAA.”

Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde (Brokep) is not impressed by Hollywood’s claims, he told TorrentFreak in a response: “They know they are losing, and try to make us look like big criminals by adding some zeros to a claim for a made-up crime.”

“The worst thing is that I lost 100 kronor on a bet on the number they would come up with,” Sunde added. “And, it sucks that they didn’t claim more than for Napster and the other sites. It’s cooler to break the record.”

When Monique Wadsted, MPAA’s lawyer and a talkshow host, was asked whether the MPAA really thinks every download is a lost sale, she said: “We don’t know that, but the copyright law doesn’t care about that. It says that if you have downloaded something illegally, you must pay regardless, if you would’ve bought it or not.”

Wadsted expects the worst now she has announced the claims, even being hacked by Pirate Bay fanboys: “I know that they have an increased interest in my person and that they try to ridicule me. I also count on having my computer hacked. As a business lawyer, I’m not used to these kinds of reactions.”

MPAA is not the only organization claiming damages. A month ago, IFPI claimed $2.5milion in damages and earlier today Antipiratbyrån asked for (1.1 million. This January, prosecutor Håkan Roswall asked the court for a $188,000 fine for four individuals - Fredrik Neij (”TiAMO”), Gottfrid Svartholm (”Anakata”), Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström.

There is no date set for the court case yet, but it will probably take a few more months before the trial starts.

To be continued.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

MPAA Demands $15 Million from The Pirate Bay

This default judgment is the result of an ongoing court case between the MPAA and Valence Media, TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnel’s company, that started early 2006.

It is uncertain at this point whether TorrentSpy will appeal.

Unsurprisingly, MPAA’s Dan Glickman was very pleased with the outcome of the case that lasted over two years, as he said:

“This substantial money judgment sends a strong message about the illegality of sites. The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios and demonstrates that such pirate sites will not be allowed to continue to operate without facing relentless litigation by copyright holders.”

“The claims made by the MPAA in this case don’t stand up to any sort of scrutiny,” says Andrew Norton, head of the US Pirate Party in a response. “It is also clear that our judicial system urgently needs some unbiased education in modern technical matters, as anyone that has watched this case knows the judge is out of her depth. What chance does justice have in that situation?”

In 2006 TorrentSpy was more popular than any other BitTorrent site, but this changed quickly in August 2007, when a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to log all user data. The judge ruled that TorrentSpy had to monitor its users in order to create detailed logs of their activities, and hand these over to the MPAA.

In a response to this decision - and to ensure the privacy of their users - TorrentSpy decided that it was best to block access to all users from the US. This led to a huge decrease in traffic and revenue.

This was not enough for the MPAA, who argued that TorrentSpy had ignored the court decision. The legal battle continued, and this lead to a preventative closure of the site by Justin, to protect the privacy of its users.

UPDATE - Wired have the judgement available in their coverage here

UPDATE - TorrentSpy will appeal the decision.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

TorrentSpy Slapped with $110 Million Judgement

A while back we posted about the plugin Azureus had developed, which allowed people to check whether their ISP is interfering with their traffic. The results showed that indeed quite a few ISPs were, but the plugin didn’t provide the user with direct feedback.

The new tool developed by the “max planck institute for software systems” can be used without having to run your BitTorrent client, and compares BitTorrent traffic to regular traffic. On top of that, it will give you more information than the Azureus plugin does.

“The goal of our Glasnost project is to make access networks, such as residential cable, DSL, and cellular broadband networks, more transparent to their customers,” the Glasnost team writes. We couldn’t agree more of course, as we have said many times before.

The way it works is pretty straightforward. The Java applet developed by the Glasnost project uploads and downloads data via BitTorrent for a few seconds, and compares that to your regular download speed. It detects if your ISP is limiting all BitTorrent traffic, or just traffic on well known BitTorrent ports. All in all this tool should be able to tell you whether your ISP is messing with BitTorrent traffic or not.

Please keep in mind that the degree of traffic shaping varies a lot between different ISPs. Some ISPs only limit BitTorrent traffic during certain times of the day or do not throttle until the customer has exceeded a certain data threshold, others only slow down traffic in specific regions. More advanced tools have to be developed to detect these methods.

Thus far, over 5,300 users have performed the test, and the preliminary results show that at least 10 ISPs in the United States are slowing down BitTorrent. We asked the researcher for some more details (names) but we haven’t heard back from them. However, on their website, they promise to provide more detailed results later, once the code is peer-reviewed.

We encourage you to do the test, if the test results show that your ISP is limiting BitTorrent traffic, please let us know. We will add a lits of offenders at the bottom of this article.

1. Comcast, USA

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Test: Does Your ISP Slow Down BitTorrent Traffic?

The new law proposes to make the recording of films in a cinema a class A misdemeanor with penalties of up to a year in prison, and a $1,000 fine for a first offender. Repeat offenders would be charged with a felony, and correspondingly higher penalties.

Unusually, however, the bill is unnecessary, as the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005 (link) already criminalized this action, with much stronger penalties. The question then seems to be not what the act is about, but WHY?

Fortunately. The answer isn’t hard to guess at with some digging. Mr Cuomo, has, like the MPAA chairman Dan Glickman, strong ties to the Clintons. Cuomo was considering running for the US Senate in 2000, but allowed current presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to run for that seat instead.

At the time, he was a Cabinet Secretary in her husband Bill’s, White House, serving as ‘Secretary of Housing and Urban Development’, during the same period that current MPAA chairman Dan Glickman was serving as ‘Secretary of Agriculture’. To some, that seems more than coincidence.

It is little surprise then, that the announcements for the law contain data from the MPAA’s 2006 LEK study as their only supporting evidence. A study which has not only been widely ridiculed (including by me), but which the MPAA has themselves undermined earlier this year.

Speaking out against the bill has been the US Pirate Party, calling it “a disgusting act of cronyism”. Ray Jenson, the Party’s operations officer , commented on the bill saying, “There can be no justice in this country, if a lobby group can effectively ‘buy’ former colleagues to propose laws like these.” The Party also hinted that they would soon be releasing a study, showing a more realistic view of the damage caused by ‘cinema camming’.

Whilst the law hasn’t been passed yet, the support shows that at least some of the millions the MPAA has pumped into its lobbying efforts have not been in vain. Meanwhile the chairman of the US Pirate Party, Andrew Norton, had this comment to offer. “In the end, no amount of laws will save the horse-and-cart that is the Entertainment Industry right now, from technological progress in this automobile age.”

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

New York Piracy Law Smells Fishy Says Pirates

We do not link to actual torrent files because linking to files that link to files that may be copyrighted is something that might get us in trouble.

The data is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of May 06, 2008…

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Most Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk18)

After a retrial, a 31 year old man from Linköping, Sweden, was found guilty this morning in the District Court.

The court decided that for uploading 4,500 music tracks and 30 movies with the filesharing application Direct Connect, the defendant should receive a heavy fine and a suspended prison sentence. Initially the file-sharer had been accused of uploading around 23,000 music tracks, but Sweden’s Anti-Piracy Agency’s (APB) use of questionable investigative techniques forced the prosecutor to withdraw some of the charges.

In its verdict, the Linköping District Court decided that due to the large number of files involved in the case, handing out just fines wasn’t enough, hence the suspended sentence. This situation of sharing many thousands of files at once affects the BitTorrent user a lot less than those using other methods of sharing, which is probably why the music industry prefers to target users using ‘folder sharing’ clients, such as DirectConnect, LimeWire and KaZaA.

Thankfully, the court denied the prosecutor’s request to have the man thrown in prison and said that this is “a task for the government, that by legislative means or in other ways take the necessary actions” to come to a solution to the problem. In fact, the court implied that the reason it issued only a suspended sentence was because the copyright industry has to take some responsibility for the situation it finds itself in.

Although escaping prison would’ve been his number one aim, the fine received by the file-sharer will hurt. In Sweden there is a system of “day fines” that is regulated by how large an income the guilty party has. In the case of day fines, two figures are given, for example ‘40 day fines of 50 kronor’ (that is to say, 2000 kronor). The first figure shows how seriously the court considers the offense (culpability) and the latter figure is determined depending on the accused’s financial situation.

He was given 40 day fines, amounting to some 10000 kronor ($1650) and must also pay the court costs of 44670 kronor ($7360).

Minister of Justice, Beatrice Ask, doesn’t want to comment on whether she sees the sentence as positive or negative. However, she commented on its effects:

“A consequence of the court having increased the sanctions in this case is that it will be easier to make ISPs give out information on IP addresses [in the future]. This of course affects the possibilities to act against these kinds of crimes.”

Morgan Gerdin, acting for the defense says the sanctions are too severe: “The District Court hasn’t observed the technical evidence. It is not possible from that evidence to conclude that my client has been filesharing. He should have been found not guilty.”

Antipiratbyrån says the case is important: “It is obvious that the court takes the scope of the infringement seriously,” says Sara Lindbäck, a lawyer at Swedish Anti Pirate Bureau.

However, Magnus Eriksson, spokesperson for Piratbyrån, doesn’t see any significance at all in the verdict: “The outcome of the verdict is based on the amount of files shared by this person. With more modern filesharing software [BitTorrent], it isn’t possible to see all the files that one person is sharing.”

He went on to say that most filesharers can continue their hobby without risking prosecution.

There were fears that a conviction in this case which resulted in prison time could open up the possibility that in the future, police could be allowed to search file-sharers’ homes in pursuit of evidence, something forbidden up to now. It remains unclear if a suspended sentence is enough to change the position.

In September 2007, the defendant started a fund to cover the fines. He has raised 7300 kronor so far.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

File-Sharer Convicted in Sweden’s Biggest P2P Case

The isoHunt vs. MPAA case has been dragging on for more than two years now. It basically comes down to the question whether a BitTorrent site is facilitating copyright infringement by indexing .torrent files, that in some cases point to copyrighted material. An important question, and the answer is likely to set a precedent for future cases against similar sites.

In April, the appointed judge asked both parties to clarify how BitTorrent works, and what isoHunt’s contribution is to the copying of (copyrighted) material. Little over a month ago the MPAA explained (in private) to judge Wilson why they think BitTorrent sites are infringing copyright, and today isoHunt has filed a response.

“The MPAA has taken a narrow point of view that copyright infringement is stealing, that isoHunt serves no other purpose than promoting and facilitating infringement of Hollywood films,” isoHunt owner Gary Fung writes. He and his lawyers refuse to be compared to “the bogeyman selling pirated DVDs on the street”, and explain why.

One of isoHunt’s arguments is that the site is in fact very similar to search engines like Google. They write: “The essential functions performed at a torrent site are also performed at a comprehensive search site like Google or Yahoo!. To visualize a visit to isoHunt, start off with a visit to Google – only a few things are changed, mostly superficial, and the workings are very similar.”

This is not a new argument, two years ago TorrentSpy used a similar analogy, and last year OiNK administrator Alan Ellis told The Telegraph: “If Google directed someone to a site where they can illegally download music, they are doing the same as what I have been accused of. I am not making any Oink users break the law.”

Indeed, torrent sites do not host or directly link to copyrighted content. In the filing isoHunt goes on to explain how BitTorrent works and what the role of the site is in the downloading process. They explain that all the site does is collect and index metafiles (torrents), and that they are not directly involved in the downloading process.

The MPAA does not agree, and has argued that sites such as isoHunt offer a “centralized index” of copyrighted material. isoHunt, however, does not agree with this view, and tell judge Wilson: “It is a semantic game to argue that Defendants provide a “centralized index.” The words “centralized” and “central” are contrary to the principles that shape and define BitTorrent technology.”

BitTorrent is indeed decentralized rather than centralized, and the claim that BitTorrent sites are an “index of copyrighted material” is not correct either, since .torrent files itself are not copyrighted. Some files may link to copyrighted material (hosted on computers all over the world), but there are thousands of .torrent files that link to material that is uploaded with the permission of the copyright holder.

isoHunt as a service does not infringe or facilitate copyright infringement, all they do is host .torrent files. These files may or may not point to copyrighted material, but this seems to be irrelevant. The site is not alone, hundreds of sites index .torrent files, and even Google has a .torrent search command. BitTorrent or .torrent links have nothing to do with copyright infringement, nor do sites like isoHunt.

“More innocent than Google, Defendants have no part in the design or operational control of the BitTorrent Network and have no more than a membership role,” isoHunt’s lawyers write. Perhaps the MPAA should sue Google next?

To be continued…

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

isoHunt and MPAA Debate Legality of BitTorrent Sites

In March, the Nine Inch Nails released their album ‘Ghosts’ under a non-commercial Creative Commons license, meaning that it can be shared freely. The band confirmed that they had uploaded the album themselves to sites like The Pirate Bay, Waffles.fm and What.cd. This is of course great news for BitTorrent fans, and a move which did the Nails’ image no harm at all.

Fans of the Nails will be delighted to hear that the free music vibe is going to get a fresh boost today. According to a report, a brand new track from the band entitled “Echoplex”, is now available for free download to millions of Facebook users.

Trent Reznor, the frontman of Nine Inch Nails has always been pro-filesharing and admits to downloading music using BitTorrent and was a member and supporter of the shuttered OiNK tracker.

For those without a Facebook account, no doubt there will be a copy of ‘Echoplex’ on your nearest BitTorrent tracker soon but make sure you check out the information included with the release. Apparently, those visiting www.nin.com, on May 5 are in for a surprise…..

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Nine Inch Nails Give Away New Single on Facebook

For those that don’t remember, lets recap. It was a little over three years ago that Hollywood took their first blast against a BitTorrent site in Europe with a lawsuit against DVDr-core. The notification (see end), served at the home address of the domain owner one Saturday morning in March 2005, led to more than a few anxious nights for fellow torrent site admins and users, wondering who would be next to get a knock at the door.

The site, which closed in December 04, after Hanff and the site’s administrators heard about raids in Holland, was not administered by Hanff, but by some online friends of his. Shortly after this dawn raid by a process server, Hanff -who had just started a new job- appeared on an episode of the BBC show “NewsNight”. The day after it aired, he was fired, for having views on copyright that the company felt were incompatible with its own, and for not disclosing the case.

That was the situation at the end of 2005 anyway. And now, more than two years have passed and he has heard nothing new. Despite the claims in the letters he has received, Hanff doesn’t think the case went any further, and was quietly dropped. “The last thing I had was a letter from the MPAA lawyers with a copy of a motion for a default [judgment]”, he told TorrentFreak. “That was November 2005 – had that motion been granted I should have heard from the courts.” The hearing in question would have been around the middle of December 2005. “I haven’t even received anything from the court about that hearing – which I should have done – so I am sceptical as to whether or not it actually went ahead”

Perhaps the MPAA felt they didn’t need to proceed any more, after all, thanks to the case, Mr Hanff lost his job, and they didn’t have to run the risk of an adverse judgment in court. As has been discussed in the past, the anti-filesharing litigation campaigns seems to be less about compensating the artists, and more about harassment, and manufacturing cases to boost lobbying efforts. It would appear that this is just more of the same – mudslinging in lieu of any actual case. The document received by Mr. Hanff is certainly full of accusations, threats, and exaggerations – something that recently cost a French Lawyer her ability to practice law.

It does bring into some doubt the ability or the desire for the MPAA to litigate outside the cozy confines of the US. It also seems to indicate the way the oink case will go, as it just had it’s bail date extended again, although it is a criminal case, whilst dvdr-core is a civil case. Nevertheless, the extension of the case with no action except the initial accusation does draw the similarities closer.

In the meantime, Mr Hanff has been spending his energies tacking Phorm, the illegal and widespread invasion of browsing privacy to target adverts via deep packet inspection in association with UK ISPs. His dissertation on the subject can be read here.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

MPAA Silently Drops Case Against BitTorrent Site

Reading about the case of David M. Fish, this week almost seemed like an action reply of other similar cases of busts in the ‘warez scene‘. Operating between 2003 and 2005, Fish was found guilty of various copyright infringement offenses and was jailed for 30 months with a further three years on probation, which is pretty standard fare in these type of cases.

So imagine if you will, the amazing contrast between Mr Fish’s predicament and that of Tony Krvaric, chairman of the San Diego Republican Party. At first glance, they seem very different - but look closer.

To better appreciate the gap, here is some background on Tony Krvaric, courtesy of a Raw Story report and the Republican Party website:

Born and raised in Sweden, Tony Krvaric was inspired by President Ronald Reagan to come to America. Though only a youth, he vowed to one day become an American and pursue his American Dream. The first step was to start his own business, and in 1992 when the opportunity presented itself, he moved to San Diego.

After becoming a naturalized citizen in June of 2003, he decided to become politically involved. Having seen, first hand, the devastating effects of socialism in Sweden and the rest of Europe, he was determined to stand up for the traditional, conservative values that helped make America great.

So what does a politician have to do with warez? Well, the strange truth is that Tony Krvaric is none other than a co-founder of notorious warez group, Fairlight. Krvaric -who started his cracking career at the “West Coast Crackers”- was in fact one of the most well-known individuals in the Warez scene at the time. Fairlight remained active after Krvaric left in 1993, and several members of the group were eventually arrested by the FBI in 2004.

During Fairlight’s earlier days and their involvement in the Commodore 64 cracking and demo scene, although cautious, the members couldn’t have imagined the punishments that are given out today. Although Krvaric isn’t shy in letting the world know some of his history and present-day situation on the C-64 Scene Database;

Presently works as a full-service financial consultant for individuals and families who share his values - helping them grow, preserve and distribute their wealth. He lives in San Diego with his wife and four children. Is a member of the Republican Party.

The excellent article goes on to list other alleged infringements by Krvaric over the years, and although he appeared to leave Fairlight in 1992, there are suggestions that he was still in charge of the group as late as 2004. It’s not possible to say if this is true or not, but according to sources, the group appeared to be operational in late 2007.

Apparently, Krvaric has now sent an email out to fellow Republicans, trying to calm the waters:

Apparently there’s a hit piece floating around on me, “exposing” my wild high school, teenage years where I was in a computer club where we swapped Commodore 64 games (similar to how kids swap mp3 music files these days). This was in the 80’s, on a computer that’s long since defunct!

[In] 1990 I graduated high school, grew up and started my own business, and then in 1992 I came to this country, continuing the same business (selling computer and video game chips and accessories as well as some nonperishable foodstuffs, taking over my father’s business for a while after he died in 1994) until I left that field when the profit margins became too thin to make any money – around 1997 or so. That’s when I became a financial consultant, which I remain to this day.

I’m sure glad they didn’t look in to my elementary school years, as there’s some really embarrassing stuff that I did in 4th grade. BTW, I also heard a rumor that another fellow committee member (who shall remain unnamed) once made a tape copy of his friend’s favorite vinyl record.

I don’t know who is spreading this but just wanted to let you know what’s going on out there. Likely it’s someone who wants us to take our eye off the ball in 2008, be it the democrats, labor or someone else. Either way, we’re not going to let them get away with it. Thanks for your leadership.

I wonder which way the newly-convicted copyright infringer David Fish would vote - if he was allowed to? Speaking of voting, Krvaric - running for reelection in 2008 - registered his email address with the Registrar of Voters. No-one can accuse him of trying to hide anything, that’s for sure:

tkrvaric@fairlight.com

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Warez Leader Is Chairman Of San Diego Republican Party

Cleveland police initially stated that the charges against Alan would be announced December 2007, but this was soon postponed for two months due to a lack of evidence. Interestingly, the police did return OiNK’s servers at the time, after they erased the hard drives. In February the bail date was extended for the second time, only to be extended yet again today.

TorrentFreak contacted Cleveland Police, but we were told that there was was no one available at the press office who could comment on the bail extension. Most likely, they need more time to gather evidence from the computers, laptop and mobile phones they still have in their possession.

OiNK was considered by many to be the finest BitTorrent music tracker the world has ever seen. The site tracked hundreds and thousands of torrents of the finest recordings, from virtually every musical genre. With millions of peers, it was more popular than most public trackers.

Jeremy Banks, Head of the IFPI’s Internet Anti-Piracy Unit described OiNK differently, and said the site was central to the illegal distribution of pre-release music online. “This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure. This was a worldwide network that got hold of music they did not own the rights to and posted it online,” he said.

Based on information from IFPI and others, Cleveland police claimed that OiNK was a money machine, and that Alan was making hundreds of thousands of pounds. The people who actually visited OiNK, however, know that the site was free to use. This was backed up by Trent Reznor, the frontman of Nine Inch Nails: “If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn’t the equivalent of that in the retail space right now.”

The IFPI and BPI did not only feed the police “misleading” information, they also took over the OiNK.cd domain and displayed an ominous message indicating an investigation into the site’s users had begun. These threats were intended to scare former OiNK members, and they succeeded in this until OiNK reclaimed the domain.

With the third extension in a row, the speculation about potential charges continues. At the moment it remains unclear what evidence the police are trying to find, but I assume they have figured out by now that the site is not as evil as the IFPI and BPI wanted them to believe.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

OiNK’s Bail Date Extended Yet Again by Police

Ideally, the IFPI wants every ISP to act as the Internet police, by restricting their customers access to websites they claim are facilitating copyright infringement.

So far, the IFPI has had little success with their lobby, that’s probably why they decided to put legal pressure on the ISPs. “We believe that ISPs have a special part to play in this and must help us. The discussions we’ve tried to have with the ISPs haven’t led anywhere,” IFPI’s Managing Director in Sweden, Lars Gustafsson, said in response to their recent announcement.

The IFPI claims to have studied several ISPs practices, but according to Lars Gustaffson they intend to focus on one particular company which they claim facilitates filesharing on the Internet. One of the services they hope to stop is their nemesis, The Pirate Bay.

Gustafsson was advised by his legal team not to disclose the name of the ISP yet, but many people think the ISP Bahnhof will be the most likely target, since they are recommended by the pirate community because of their high stance on integrity.

“The ISPs don’t believe they have any responsibility to help when it comes to hindering filesharing,” says Lars Gustafsson. IFPI already sent out letters to several service providers, urging them to start monitoring their customers and filtering websites.

Most ISPs refuse to cooperate with the IFPI though. Last month, Telia Sonera, a large Swedish ISP responded to the IFPI’s request by stating that such actions are illegal under EU law. Norwegian ISPs later responded with similar arguments.

On the other hand, the IFPI claims that restricting access to filesharing sites might actually benefit ISPs. “Illegal P2P file-sharing may have helped drive broadband subscriptions in the past, yet today these activities, particularly in respect of movies, are hogging bandwidth,” they state.

Thus far, the IFPI has won in Denmark. In February, a Danish court ordered the ISP ‘Tele2′ to block its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay. The decision is currently under appeal, and the Pirate Bay recently announced that they will demand compensation for the block.

To be continued…

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

IFPI to Sue Swedish ISP for Facilitating Copyright Infringement

Over the last few days, an anti-piracy video produced by MIPI - Music Industry Piracy Investigations - and circulated around every high school in Australia, has been grabbing a few headlines. The 10 minute video which is designed to be easily spread around the internet, was apparently supported by many Australian artists with Lisa Origliasso of the Veronicas saying: “The problem with downloading obviously is that it’s ruining our industry in a way, because I mean you know artists just aren’t making money, record companies aren’t making money from it.”

Other artists supporting the project include Powderfinger, Silverchair, Jimmy Barnes, Operator Please, Gyroscope, Dawn Collective and punk band, Frenzal Rhomb.

Actually, to say that Frenzal Rhomb support the video is not exactly true. Their guitarist, Lindsay McDougall, is not a happy man this morning as he tears into the music industry, claiming he was “duped” into appearing in the video.

McDougall, who is also a presenter on radio station Triple J, told SMH that he was furious at being “lumped in with this witch hunt” and that he had been “completely taken out of context and defamed” by the Australian music industry. McDougall was told that the video was all about surviving as an Australian artist and no-one told him it was part of an anti-piracy drive.

He said: “I have never come out against Internet piracy and illegal downloading and I wouldn’t do that - I would never put my name to something that is against downloading and is against piracy and stuff, it’s something that I believe is a personal thing from artist to artist.”

McDougall goes on, stating: “I would never be part of this big record industry funded campaign to crush illegal downloads, I’m not like [Metallica drummer] Lars Ulrich. I think it’s bullshit, I think it’s record companies crying poor and I don’t agree with it.”

Echoing the words of many artists in recent times, McDougall decries the methods of the record labels, in that they are the ones making all the money and still complain about what they see as a lack of revenue, even though they failed to adapt to the digital age:

“I’m from a punk rock band, it’s all about getting your music out any way you can - you don’t make money from the record, the record companies make the money from the record. If they can’t make money these days because they haven’t come onside with the way the world is going, it’s their own problem.”

Sabiene Heindl, general manager at MIPI said they were very clear in indicating where the video originated and that it would be distributed to schools, but clearly McDougall is still concerned about his image being sullied by association.

“I don’t think i’m going to sue anyone but I would say that already this morning people’s opinion of me has been lowered,” he said. Not now you’ve set the record straight Mr McDougall.

Coincidentally, TorrentFreak has recently been in touch with a punk outfit who are embracing the power of the digital revolution and BitTorrent in particular. CEO Nick Vivid of MegaPlatinum.net said of their fledgling “Spread This!” BitTorrent network : “We are really enjoying the ability to embrace the punk aesthetics of ‘Do it yourself’ and ‘Call for Change’ - our aesthetics - with this system. There’s an amazing amount of chaos in the record industry. This total deconstruction of the system is exactly what helps us thrive. Our bands feed off of that energy, just as we do.”

Commenting on this situation, Nick told us: “It’s funny how organizations with intimidating names and non menacing acronyms will use deceptive means to warp the words and ruin the reputations of people like Lindsay McDougall - people who have a certain amount of credibility they’ve worked hard to get - in any way possible so that it fits their agenda. More sad proof that a large part of the music industry doesn’t care about the artists or the fans. It’s something else entirely they’re after. I’m surprised Australia let such propaganda in the schools. Microsoft recently proposed something similar in the USA. Thankfully enough people in our educational system saw the ridiculousness of the idea and squashed it.”

Stay tuned for an interview soon.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Music Industry Tricked Artist Into Anti-Piracy “Witch Hunt”