Month: August 2015

T-Mobile Refuses to Block The Pirate Bay

pirate bayAs the poster-child of online piracy, The Pirate Bay has become one of the most censored websites on the Internet in recent years.

Most recently the Austrian Internet provider A1 was ordered by the Commercial Court of Vienna to block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay.

In addition to various domain names of the notorious torrent site, the court order also requires the Internet provider to block three other “structurally infringing” sites; Isohunt.to, 1337x.to and h33t.to.

Taking advantage of this momentum, local music rights group LSG sent its lawyers after several other large ISPs urging them to follow suit, or else.

A letter with a ‘demand’ to block The Pirate Bay and others was sent T-Mobile and Drei, among others. However, without a court order directed at them the providers are not all eager to comply.

Helmut Spudich, spokesman for T-Mobile, says that his company has no plans to implement new blocking measures. “We will not to comply with this request and access to The Pirate Bay will not be blocked,” Spudich told Futurezone.

The decision of the Commercial Court of Vienna only applies to A1, so T-Mobile sees no legal obligation to comply with the request.

Instead, T-Mobile notes that the authorities “should implement clear legal regulations with regard to Internet blocking in Austria.”

“We don’t want to block our customers to be blocked inadvertently and would like a clarification on the correct procedure,” Spudich adds.

Several other Austrian Internet providers have received the same letter but thus far none have publicly stated that they are prepared to voluntarily block The Pirate Bay on their network.

The Pirate Bay is not the first site to be targeted in Austria. Earlier this year the Supreme Court ordered several leading Austrian ISPs to block the major streaming sites Movie4K.to and Kinox.to.

This order also clarified that the Internet providers will have to pay the costs for future blockades, which may make ISPs more hesitant to comply without protest.

Whether copyright holders will indeed take T-Mobile and other ISPs to court to broaden the existing blockade has yet to be seen.

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


Source: TorrentFreak

Aussie Piracy Notices Delayed But Lawsuits Are Coming

warningAfter years of wrangling, on September 1, 2015, Australian ISPs will take the historic step of implementing a new anti-piracy scheme, one that will see Internet users issued with escalating warning notices designed to bring a halt to their pirating ways.

Well, at least that was the plan when a draft anti-piracy code was laid down in April. Almost predictably, however, that deadline will come and go without event.

The problem – and this will come as zero surprise to those who have followed this process for the past several years – is one related to costs.

Money, money, money

Since the beginning of negotiations, rightsholders have insisted that ISPs should pick up varying percentages of the bills incurred when sending piracy warnings to their subscribers. Equally, ISPs have insisted that if rightsholders want notices sent out, they should be the ones to pay.

This dispute has brought the parties to deadlock several times during years of negotiations, and has derailed talks completely more than once, most recently in 2012. However, this year – with the government breathing down their necks – rightsholders and ISPs agreed most aspects of how the notices would be handled, but left the issue of costs until another day.

That day has now arrived and still there are disputes. With the launch of the scheme supposedly just next week, ITNews reports that during an industry briefing this morning it was revealed that the parties are still arguing over who will pay for the 200,000 notices set to go out in the scheme’s first year.

For their part, rightsholders think that the ISPs should help with the costs, in part because it is their customers carrying out the infringements. They also believe that if ISPs foot part of the bill, they will be keen to keep costs down.

On the other hand, ISPs insist that if the notices prove effective in cutting piracy and driving up sales, rightsholders will get the benefit so should therefore pay the bill.

Countering, rightsholders also point to the bigger picture, one in which ISPs are increasingly becoming the conduit for providing entertainment content to subscribers.

“As ISPs increasingly become content providers, the business imperative to make sure people are valuing those services will become more and more important [to them],” says Foxtel director of corporate affairs Bruce Meagher.

So how much is the whole thing likely to cost? According to figures obtained by ITNews, there is dispute there too.

Too expensive to reduce piracy?

ISPs say that the bill could amount to $27 per IP address targeted, while rightsholders suggest that the figure would be more like $6. A report commissioned by the parties earlier this year concluded that the cost will be closer to the $27 suggested by the ISPs.

That cost is too high. As previously seen in New Zealand, “strikes” schemes with high costs are rendered pointless.

“We saw that in New Zealand where the government mandated $25 per IP address, and no-one used the scheme,” Meagher says. “We’ve got to work out a way of setting a price that encourages the scheme to be used.”

If in doubt, send the lawyers out

But even though agreement could take a while to reach, there are those in the entertainment industry already looking ahead to what might happen once people start receiving warning notices. Speaking with SBS, Village Roadshow co-founder Graham Burke says that if the notices don’t prove enough of a deterrent, legal action will be the next step.

“Yes, [piracy] is wrong. [Downloaders] have been warned, and sent notices that they’re doing the wrong thing. Yes we will sue people,” Burke said.

Asked by interviewer Marc Fennell whether there is any fear of a backlash should the industry start suing single parents and grandmothers (as they have done in the past), Burke dismissed the concerns.

“It was really just a couple of instances of a bad news day, where [the press] picked up a couple of instances of a single pregnant mother,” he said.

But would just a couple of those stories prove damaging?

“Not if it’s seen in the context that it is theft, and they have been doing the wrong thing, and they’ve been sent appropriate notices, and they’ve been dealt with accordingly. We’re certainly not going to be seeking out single pregnant mothers,” Burke said.

Confronted with the likelihood that some people will simply hide their activities by using a VPN, Burke played down the fears.

“I think that if people are appealed to in the right way, they’ll react appropriately,” he said.

Site blocking

Finally, after site-blocking legislation was passed earlier this year, Burke has now confirmed that his company will take action soon.

“We are going through the legal preparation at this stage and will be ready in October to go to the courts and ask them to block sites,” he concludes.

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


Source: TorrentFreak

Streaming Site Operator Accused of £120m ‘Piracy Fraud’

In May 2011, police in Northern Ireland reported seizing £83,000 and computer equipment following a raid in Londonderry. The operation was the culmination of an investigation carried out by the Hollywood-funded anti-piracy group Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT).

In February 2015, Paul Mahoney from Carnhill, Londonderry, was charged with offenses connected with operating now-defunct streaming links site FastPassTV and discussion and linking forum BedroomMedia. He pleaded not guilty to all charges and was bailed to appear at a later date.

In June, 30-year-old Mahoney changed direction, pleading guilty to all four charges against him including allowing the public to view copyrighted movies without rightsholder permission, conspiracy, and generating hundreds of thousands in illegal advertising revenue.

Mahoney was up in court again yesterday for a pre-sentence hearing and its becoming increasingly clear how much trouble he’s in.

After operating various sites for around six years, the prosecution claims that Mahoney made almost 410,000 euros ($471,500) from his endeavors, while simultaneously claiming state benefits worth around 12,000 euros ($13,800). When his house was raided, police found almost £82,400 ($129,000) in cash hidden away.

fastpass

During the hearing in Derry’s crown court, prosecutor David Groome QC laid out the alleged scale of the 30-year-old’s offending while describing the financial implications as “staggering”.

Taking a single six-month period during which visitors to Mahoney’s sites viewed movies 1.1 million times illegally, Groome took the figures and ran with them, painting a somewhat scary picture for the court.

“During the six-year life of defendant’s business that equates to something like movies being viewed on 12 million occasions. If you consider it is about £10 to go to the cinema or about £10 to buy a brand new DVD upon its release, it means the defendant’s websites enabled users of it to view about £120 million [$188m] worth of property,” Groome said.

While acknowledging that not every view would represent a lost sale, the prosecution noted that Mahoney had taken a number of actions since 2007 to avoid having his sites closed down. Cease and desist notices issued by FACT appear to have been ignored and police arrested him twice, yet still he continued with his operations.

Defending Mahoney, Martin Rodgers QC said his client’s partial blindness meant that he was bullied at school, events that led to him becoming a virtual bedroom recluse for around 10 years.

“His constant and only companion during that period of time was in fact his computer. In one sense, he essentially lived in a bubble for a period of time,” Rodgers said.

Interestingly, the defense addressed the prosecution’s claims that Mahoney generated large revenues from advertising companies by questioning why they weren’t being prosecuted too.

“They entered into agreements that if anyone visited the site they would pay, even though from a cursory view of the site it would be apparent this was facilitating criminal offenses,” Rodgers said.

But despite the claims of massive profits, Mahoney’s lawyer rejected the notion that his client had enjoyed the high-life.

“There were no Rolex watches, no Ferraris outside and no evidence of an extravagant lifestyle. This enterprise took on a life of its own and became far more successful than this defendant ever envisaged,” he said.

While Mahoney faces a potential custodial sentence next month, FACT says that there will be no claim for compensation. Instead, they hope that the prosecution alone will send a clear message to others considering a similar path.

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


Source: TorrentFreak

Megaupload Wants U.S. Govt to Buy and Store its Servers

megauploadWhen Megaupload and Kim Dotcom were raided early 2012, the U.S. Government seized 1,103 servers at Carpathia’s hosting facility in the United States.

Nearly four years have since passed and after all this time the servers are still gathering dust at a Virginia warehouse.

In recent weeks the issue has come to the forefront again. QTS, the company that owns the servers after it acquired Carpathia hosting, asked the court if it can get rid of the data which costs them thousands of dollars per month in storage costs.

This motion triggered a reply from former Megaupload user Kyle Goodwin who still hopes to retrieve his files and a few hours ago Megaupload’s legal team also submitted a comment, asking the court to add it as an official response.

Megaupload points out that the data on the servers must be preserved. Not only for the users’ sake, but also because they contain crucial evidence. The company plans to use this to its benefit in the criminal proceedings as well as the pending cases against the MPAA and RIAA.

The DOJ previously allowed the data hosted in Europe to be destroyed, they argue. If the same happens to the Carpathia servers various examples of Megaupload’s “copyright neutral technology” may disappear.

“The database servers can show safe harbor compliance. The web servers can show the copyright neutral nature of the interface design. The content servers in combination with other data can show fair use and substantial non-infringing uses and users,” Megaupload writes.

Thus far the U.S. Government has only copied a very small percentage of the total data and Megaupload fears that this may be “cherry-picked” to favor the Department of Justice’s case.

“The Government is burdened with a weak case to present in a criminal trial and it wants to prevent a strong defense,” Megaupload’s legal team writes.

“The Government cannot criminally and civilly indict all the revenues arising out of all the global users of the Megaupload cloud storage site in the largest copyright case in history while at the same time cherry picking a sliver evidence to retain for trial and throwing away the rest to manifestly prevent the mounting of a fair defense,” they add.

Megaupload’s legal team asks the court to instruct the Government to buy the servers and transfer them to a facility where they and other authorized parties can access them.

“The Government should bear the cost of such purchase and preservation,” the legal team write.

Before ruling on Megaupload’s request, District Court Judge Liam O’Grady first has to decide whether to accept its request to be heard in the matter. The Government is also likely to chime in, as they’re probably not in favor of the proposed solution.

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


Source: TorrentFreak