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For the third year in a row the official Russian Wikimedia chapter is awarding a prize to a person or organization that made ​​a notable contribution in line with the goals of the Wikimedia movement.

Earlier this month Wikimedia announced the nominations for the Wiki “Free Knowledge” award, which includes Russia’s largest torrent tracker RuTracker as well as Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan.

Elbakyan made headlines around the world after she was sued by Elsevier, one of the largest academic publishers. Through Sci-Hub she offer millions of academic articles, which are usually behind a paywall, free of charge.

“Everyone should have access to knowledge regardless of their income or affiliation. And that’s absolutely legal. The idea that knowledge can be a private property of some commercial company sounds absolutely weird to me,” she told us last year.

Sci-Hub

This deviant stance is supported by many scientists who are calling for more open access to research findings, and this also got her a nomination for Wikimedia Russia’s Free Knowledge award.

“For many Russian scientists this project is in fact the only opportunity to quickly familiarize themselves with scientific articles, especially given the economic events of the last couple of years,” one commenter noted during the nomination process.

In total there are nine nominees, including a Russian State Library project, the Russian Ministry of Defense and the hugely popular torrent site RuTracker.

In recent months RuTracker has pushed back hard against legal pressure from various sides and various censorship efforts. According to some Wikimedia members, the site deserves to be awarded for its role in freely spreading Russian culture.

“I know hundreds of writers who through RuTracker distribute their own works: musicians, directors, writers, scientists, teachers, photographers and others,” a commenter noted during the nomination process, applauding the site’s free knowledge approach.

Not everyone agrees with the nomination of RuTracker though. Another member highlighted the numerous copyright violations which run contrary to the ideas of the Wikimedia Foundation, calling the nomination “unacceptable and absurd.”

The members of the Russian Wikimedia chapter will now weigh the pros and cons for each of the nominees. The winner will be announced next month during the award ceremony.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Source: TorrentFreak

As a shock to the world Prince was found dead at his home, Paisley Park, yesterday morning.

His death is being mourned all around the world in a way seldom seen before, a sign of the massive impact he had on several generations.

The days to come will be filled with anecdotes, retrospects, documentaries and specials about his life, and most importantly about his music. Rightfully so.

Similarly, many people want to play their favorite Prince tracks in honor of a great artists. However, those who know Prince realize that this is more easily said than done.

Prince was known for protecting his work. Not just from pirates, but also from greedy music labels and other ‘profiteers.’ This is one of the reasons why it’s hard to find his tracks on YouTube or Spotify.

As we noted earlier today, Prince’s piracy aversion was particularly strong. He was one of the first to threaten The Pirate Bay with a lawsuit almost ten years ago, as co-founder Peter Sunde recalled yesterday.

With the help of Web Sheriff he also made sure that pirated copies were regularly removed from various pirate sites. At least, from those sites that honor takedown requests.

Despite this strong anti-piracy stance, Prince fans have not shied away from torrent sites over the past 24-hours. On the contrary, just several hours after his death full discographies and compilation albums were uploaded all over the Internet.

Before his death only a few dozen people were actively sharing Prince albums online, but this number jumped to several thousand soon after his passing.

Prince torrents

Over the past day an estimated 100,000 people have downloaded a Prince torrent. And on KickassTorrents, the most visited torrent site, Prince currently fills the top five most-shared music file slots.

Most users probably see nothing wrong in downloading the tracks. Some might even do it as some sort of tribute, as the various comment sections are littered with RIPs and positive words.

However, the piracy craze feels a little awkward to say the least.

Perhaps the best way to honor Prince is to buy some of his music. Not because the money will do him any good, but because that’s what he would have wanted. Yeah, awkward…

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Source: TorrentFreak

Yesterday the world had to come to terms with the fact that one of the greatest musicians of the modern age was no longer with us. As first reported by TMZ, Prince passed away at Paisley Park, aged just 57.

While undoubtedly a musical genius, Prince’s relationship with the Internet was often a difficult one, with the entertainer even withdrawing all of his music from the major streaming services last year, leaving it only on Tidal.

But in file-sharing circles Prince was probably best known for his efforts to bring Internet piracy to an end. Almost nine years ago as part of an initiative to “reclaim the Internet”, Prince hired controversial anti-piracy outfit Web Sheriff to hit sites including YouTube, eBay, and of course, The Pirate Bay. The letter the site received on his behalf was ‘unique’ to say the least.

“Well, ‘way to go on losing all your fans’,” Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde told TF at the time. “I truly respect the son of a king’s work as a musician but he seems like he has some kind of problem in getting to deal with his fans.”

In the end that particular threat of legal action came to nothing but Prince’s fight against piracy never ended and sometimes pushed the boundaries of sensible. In 2014 Prince shocked almost everyone by threatening to sue 22 fans who posted links to videos of his concerts on Facebook.

“Prince has suffered and is continuing to suffer damages in an amount according to proof, but no less than $1 million per Defendant,” the lawsuit read.

Just a day later the lawsuit was withdrawn, adding yet another mystery to Prince’s life.

But whatever one might think of the man’s attitude towards the Internet and indeed piracy, one had to admire his commitment. While obviously keen to protect his own interests, Prince seemed to truly care about artists’ welfare. Interestingly, an extraordinary story that surfaced last night underlines just that.

When unauthorized content appears online, most artists and their labels rely on a chain of middle men to do the work for them, including taking content down and/or issuing legal threats. Indeed, Prince has relied on this mechanism himself many times in the past.

However, according to the operator of music hosting site YourListen, Prince wasn’t averse to dealing with things personally. After allowing only Tidal to stream his music, Prince discovered unauthorized music on YourListen – and decided to do something about it.

“I never thought in my life I would get a call on my cell phone from Prince,” Scott Goodman told The Frame.

“We never had the artist decide to physically call us and ask us to take that music down,” he said, noting that function was mostly carried out by automated bots.

Amazingly, Goodman says that Prince stayed on the line for almost 30 minutes to explain why he was determined to protect his music.

“His big picture and his goal and battle he’s been fighting for decades is stopping piracy. He truly believed that piracy could come to an end with people like him, who obviously had power and money. He told me, ‘Scott, we need to fight piracy. We cannot have musicians having their music stolen’,” Goodman says.

Having someone like Prince make a personal call to any kind of file-sharing site is absolutely unprecedented and it certainly appears to have had an impact on Goodman. Of course, one phone call is unlikely to change the world, but the thought that someone as reclusive as Prince believed in a cause enough to make that call himself is quite something.

“Prince fought the music industry, but also the internet (sued me at least once),” Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde said last night.

“He was a creative genius, deserves so much respect. RIP.”

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Source: TorrentFreak

In recent years file-sharers all across Europe have been threatened with lawsuits, if they don’t pay a significant settlement fee.

The process was pioneered in Germany where it turned into an industry by itself, but copyright holders have also targeted alleged pirates in the UK, Finland and elsewhere.

Sweden is one of the latest countries where these so-called “copyright trolls” have landed. At the birth ground of The Pirate Bay, media outfit Crystalis Entertainment received permission from the court to identify several BitTorrent users, based on their IP-addresses.

The case, which could be the first of many, was filed against the local ISP TeliaSonera who handed over the requested information without putting up much of a fight.

This prompted the competing Internet provider Bahnhof to issue a warning. The company notes that the copyright holder in question doesn’t have a very strong case, and it criticizes Telia for caving in too easily.

“The Stockholm district court did not even see any evidence showing that these IP addresses were actually used for file sharing. It could basically be one of these Nigerian mail scams,” Bahnhof CEO Jon Karlung says.

“I think that Telia folded caved in too easily. Although Crystal Entertainment properly represents certain copyright holders, at Bahnhof we would choose to appeal,” he adds.

The ISP says that they will not hand over any data without urging for a proper review of the evidence.

This is no surprise for a company that’s heavily focused on user privacy. Bahnhof’s tagline is “Internet with privacy” and two years ago the ISP was one of the first to launch a free VPN, responding to a legal requirement that required it to log subscriber activities.

In a press release Bahnhof explains how these extortion-like demands from copyright holders have become commonplace in Germany. It’s exactly this type of witch hunt is something they hope to prevent in Sweden.

This means that if copyright holders demand the same info from Bahnhof, they will fight this in court.

“We have to follow the law and no one can predict the future, but one thing I can guarantee, we’re on the side if our users. We will do everything in our power to prevent the German situation from spreading,” Karlung says.

Bahnhof’s CEO also has some advice for the media companies that are affected by piracy. They should invest their time and money in offering great content, instead of taking their customers to court.

“It is better for copyright holders to put their money into developing services that people want to pay for, like Netflix and Spotify, instead of becoming entrenched in the 1900s,” he concludes.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Source: TorrentFreak

Most of Prince’s music can’t be found online (aside from on Tidal). Here are the best videos out there. The post The Best Prince Videos Available on YouTube appeared first on WIRED.
Source: Wired.com Top Stories

Google today boasted of growing video advertising on YouTube was improved games sales on Google Play. But bigger mobile search revenues stole the show. The post Google Isn’t Done Wringing Profits Out of Search Yet appeared first on WIRED.
Source: Wired.com Top Stories

Alphabet more than doubled its moonshot revenue but also spilled way more red ink. The post Google’s Parent Company Is Losing Even More Money On Moonshots appeared first on WIRED.
Source: Wired.com Top Stories

USGS releases maps that show the seismic parades happening in Ecuador and Japan. Here’s how they’re wreaking havoc. The post New Maps Make Aftershocks Look Scarier Than the Main Quake appeared first on WIRED.
Source: Wired.com Top Stories

If correct, this would mean that taxpayers shelled out more than $1 million for a solution that reportedly produced nothing useful for the investigation. The post FBI Hints It Paid Hackers $1 Million to Get Into San Bernardino iPhone appeared first on WIRED.
Source: Wired.com Top Stories

Back in 2006 Opera was the first major browser to include BitTorrent support, and today it releases another feature that will appeal to millions of users.

The company has added a free and unlimited VPN to the developer version of its browser. This means that users can browse the web securely at the flick of a switch.

Privacy aside, the built-in VPN is also an ideal tool to circumvent website blockades. This may come in handy for the aforementioned BitTorrent users as well, as sites such as The Pirate Bay are blocked in many countries.

The VPN connection is provided by the Canadian VPN service SurfEasy, which like many other VPNs keeps no logs. SurfEasy was acquired by Opera last year and VP of Marketing Steve Kelly tells TorrentFreak that privacy and censorship were the main reasons to add the free VPN to Opera.

“Everyone deserves to surf privately online if they want to. Today, it is too difficult to maintain privacy when using the web, and way too many people experience roadblocks online, like blocked content,” Kelly says.

“By releasing an integrated, free and unlimited VPN in the browser, we make it simple for people to enhance their privacy and access the content they want,” he adds.

It is worth highlighting that the VPN connection is limited to the web browser. This means that any content shared outside the browser, through traditional torrent clients for example, is not private.

Opera’s in-browser VPN uses AES-256 encryption and SurfEasy says that the initial response has been very strong. The network is prepared to handle hundreds of thousands of simultaneous connections without any problems.

With the addition of a VPN feature Opera hopes to set a new standard for modern browsers. Earlier, it was already the first major browser to include an ad-blocker.

“This is the first VPN option integrated into a major browser. Also, it’s delivered from a company you can trust, with an extensive history of providing reliable and trustworthy internet products,” Kelly told us.

More details about the built-in VPN are available at the Opera blog. People who want to give it a spin should download the latest developer release, as the feature is not available in the regular version yet.

Opera’s VPN feature

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Source: TorrentFreak