CBS and CNET Protest Looming BitTorrent Client Ban
Updated: 2013-01-30 15:07:57
CBS and CNET have asked a Californian federal court not to grant a ban on the distribution of file-sharing software through Download.com. They responded to a request for a preliminary injunction from a coalition of artists and billionaire Alki David who claim that CBS induces piracy. According to the media conglomerate this is not the case, and CBS argues that there are many non-infringing uses for BitTorrent.Source: CBS and CNET Protest Looming BitTorrent Client Ban
For years entertainment companies have put huge efforts into campaigns to inflict so-called "three strikes" campaigns on errant Internet users who download music and movies for free. The ultimate sanction of disconnection has always been touted as necessary in order for people to take things seriously but over in France, a country that pioneered graduated response, it seems that the music biz now wants to ditch disconnections in favor of fines.Source: Music Biz Wants To Swap ISP Disconnections For Cash Fines
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again, 'Life of Pi' tops the chart this week, followed by 'Silver Linings Playbook'. 'Skyfall' completes the top three.Source: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
BitTorrent Inc. has released a new application that allows users to securely sync folders to multiple devices using the BitTorrent protocol. The free application has no storage limits and can serve both as a public backup system and a shared drive. BitTorrent Sync is especially efficient for groups who need to share many large files over the Internet,. Source: BitTorrent Launches Private and Secure Dropbox Alternative
The Government of Antigua is planning to launch a website selling movies, music and software, without paying U.S. copyright holders. The Caribbean island is taking the unprecedented step because the United States refuses to lift a trade “blockade” preventing the island from offering Internet gambling services, despite several WTO decisions in Antigua’s favor. The country now hopes to recoup some of the lost income through a WTO approved "warez" site.Source: Antigua Government Set to Launch “Pirate” Website To Punish United States
In yet another bizarre twist to the Mega story, for the second time in less than two years a video belonging to Kim Dotcom has been booted offline following an apparent bogus copyright infringement takedown request. After the video of the Mega launch party was taken down by music rights group GEMA overnight, Dotcom says the German outfit will be hearing from his lawyers.Source: Mega Launch Video Removed From YouTube By Music Rights Outfit
TPB-AFK, the upcoming documentary about The Pirate Bay and its founders, has a release date. The film is premiering with a prominent spot at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival on February 8. At the same time TPB-AFK will also be released for free on the Internet., making it the first film ever to premiere both online and at an A-list festival. Source: Pirate Bay Documentary First Ever to Premiere Online and at a Major Festival
IsoHunt, one of the oldest BitTorrent sites on the Internet, turns 10 years old today. The site has been fighting Hollywood in court for more than seven years but has not backed down. IsoHunt founder Gary Fung is determined to protect and facilitate people's right to share culture legitimately. "One would think the people of the Internet are losing to the copyright cartels, but I think different," he says.Source: isoHunt Turns 10 Years Old, Keeps on Fighting Copyright Cartels
It’s been an up and down week for Pirates, as official party status has been decided in two countries. In Australia it’s a big G’day to their Pirate Party, while the Russians yet again heard ‘Nyet’ from their Ministry of Justice.Source: Australian Pirate Party Gets Approved and Russians are Denied (Again)
An anti-piracy group with the stated aim of shutting down file-hosting services by strangling their finances has wasted no time in going after Kim Dotcom's new baby. Robert King of StopFileLockers says that his outfit has started a campaign to have the payment processor accounts of Mega resellers terminated. King, who is affiliated with the adult industry, says that from the start Mega was never intended to be a legitimate service and has "all the fundamental qualities" of an infringing file-locker.Source: Dotcom’s Mega: Anti-Piracy Group Moves To Cut Off Site’s Finances
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again, 'Silver Linings Playbook' tops the chart this week, followed by 'Argo'. 'Django Unchained' completes the top three.Source: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
People in power have always tried to prevent the common folk from obtaining knowledge that threatens their power. This happened in the 16th century, and it is happening now.Source: The 16th Century Religious Wars And Today’s Copyright Monopoly Wars Have More In Common Than You Think
The much anticipated rebirth of Megaupload took place in the last few hours with interest living up to expectations. In less than one hour the site picked up 100,000 new registrations, going on to 500,000 and beyond just a few hours later. As the site struggled to cope with demand it became unresponsive in the face of an unprecedented flood of users eager to test out the new file-hosting site. Just a few minutes ago the launch party at Kim Dotcom's mansion began, with some interesting reveals.Source: Dotcom’s Mega Launches To Unprecedented Demand
The timeless plastic bricks of LEGO can be built into predetermined items such as a car or house but can also be formed into any shape, the options limited only by the creativeness of its builder. However, turn LEGO bricks into a controversial item and the company's lawyers could soon be breathing down your neck. The Czech Pirate Party did just that and are now calling for Internet allies in their war with the corporates behind one of the world's most famous toys.Source: Pirate Party Battles LEGO Over Copyright and Trademark Injunction
Today a few dozen people were invited to try Mega, the new and improved version of the defunct Megaupload file-hosting service. With "The Privacy Company" as Mega's slogan, Kim Dotcom and his team are making it clear that they are doing their best to secure the files of their users. Our first impression confirms that the encryption indeed works brilliantly, but those who are looking for complete anonymity might be a bit disappointed.Source: Mega Launches: Brilliantly Secure, But Not Anonymous
During the coming weeks the controversial “six-strikes” anti-piracy system will start in the U.S. The initiative is aimed at educating the public, but last week we uncovered from leaked documents that it also applies to businesses. Today CCI director Jill Lesser confirms that indeed some business accounts will be affected. However, she adds that this is not going to affect café owners who offer public WiFi, as this is already prohibited in the applicable Terms of Services.Source: “Six Strikes” Anti-Piracy Scheme Affects Some Businesses, Public WiFi Forbidden
: Home Attorneys Contact Products Representative Clients Cases Search CO Records Services Workshops and Appearances Posts Photo Attorney Serving the Photographer's Legal Needs Save the Date : Copyright Matters” Public Events On 01.17.13, In Education by Carolyn E . Wright The U.S . Copyright Office is hosting some public events on : copyright February 5, : 2013 Professor Peter Jaszi , Origins and Goals of Best Practices in Fair Use . 10:30 a.m . Coolidge Auditorium , Library of Congress March 6, 2013 Nimmer on Copyright : Celebrating 50 Years of the Treatise with Observations from Legal Scholars . 3:00 p.m . Coolidge Auditorium , Library of Congress Save the dates Additional details to . come Carolyn E . Wright Carolyn E . Wright , a k a the Photo Attorney® , is a full-time attorney whose
A teacher with an apparently limited knowledge of file-sharing techniques committed a blunder of epic proportions last Friday. In an attempt to obtain a cartoon movie for her class to watch the teacher fired up a file-sharing client, tapped a few buttons and initiated a download . Taking the finished product into class, she fired up her computer and went outside to answer a phone call. When she returned the 3 to 5-year-old children in her care were watching a porn movie.Source: Pirated Cartoon Download Leads to Kindergarten Porn Show
A Canadian court has rejected a request from the United States to hand over 32 servers hosted by a local provider. Instead of simply handing over all data, which may include personal files of users, the court decided to first determine what files are stored on the machines. Megaupload lawyer Ira Rothken is pleased with the ruling and hopes the United States will be more considerate of the privacy of cloud hosting users when requesting data seizures in the future.Source: Canadian Court Refuses to Ship Megaupload Servers to the US
A Dutch teacher has been convicted for linking to pirated copies of math answer sheets stored on file-storage sites. The Amsterdam court ordered the teacher to remove the hyperlinks from his personal website and pay the litigation costs. According to the verdict the teacher facilitated students' copyright infringements, this despite the fact that downloading for personal use is legal in the Netherlands.Source: Math Teacher Convicted for Linking to Pirated Answer Sheets
One of the most comprehensive studies into media sharing and consumption habits in the United States and Germany reveals that nearly half of the populations have copied, shared or downloaded music, movies, and TV shows. Sharing occurs both on- and offline, but the latter is seen as reasonable by most people. The report does, however, reveal that online file-sharers consume more music than their non-file-sharing counterparts.Source: Study Maps the Emerging Ethics of File Sharing and Copyright Enforcement
A takedown of a YouTube video that has been held as a model of fair use prompted widespread outrage last week. The video, Buffy vs Edward, was eventually reinstated and the claims dropped, but that's not the end of the discussion. The process used, like most ‘x strike’ copyright programs, relies on good faith from the claimant, but what happens when there is none?Source: Copyright “Strike” Systems Are Modern Witch Trials
As a US-based film studio continues with its plans to send cash settlement demands to alleged Canadian BitTorrent pirates, a judge has delayed the handing over of their personal details. Voltage PIctures recently targeted more than a thousand customers of the Ontario-based ISP Teksavvy as potential recipients of pay-up-or-else letters in connection to illegal file-sharing, but yesterday a court delayed the case to allow a public interest group to prepare an intervention to examine the studio's evidence.Source: Judge Delays Teksavvy Copyright Trolls For Public Interest Intervention
For the major music labels the sales of recorded music represent the majority of their revenue, but a different picture emerges when looking at the income of individual musicians. A new survey among 5,000 U.S. musicians of different genres shows that on average only six percent of all revenue comes from recorded music. The research concludes that copyright law mostly affects the revenue of the highest-income musicians in a direct fashion.Source: Sound Recording Just 6% of Average Musician’s Income (Updated)
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent are in again, 'Django Unchained' tops the chart this week, followed by 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey'. 'Zero Dark Thirty' completes the top three.Source: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
In common with many others around the world, the government of Norway see sites like The Pirate Bay as particularly responsible for the growth of file-sharing online but have had little success in stopping their activities. Following failed attempts by rightsholders to have the site censored by ISPs, this month the government will reveal its new proposals to tackle the problem. They are widely expected to include changes to copyright law to allow sites to be blocked, with The Pirate Bay at the top of the list.Source: Norway Faces Site Blocking Measures in Anti-Filesharing Bill
A brilliant mind has passed and it’s heartbreaking.Source: Remember Aaron Swartz (1986 – 2013)
During the coming weeks the controversial “six-strikes” anti-piracy system will kick off in the U.S. While none of the participating ISPs have officially announced how they will handle repeat infringers, TorrentFreak has obtained a copy of Verizon's full policy. Among other things, offenders will have to watch a video about the consequences of online piracy, before their speeds are reduced to 256kbps. Also worth mentioning is that the copyright alert system will also apply to business customers.Source: Verizon’s “Six Strikes” Anti-Piracy Measures Unveiled
The Pirate Bay is one of the best known file-sharing brands and in less than a decade the site has well-earned its place in computer history. The Computer Museum in Linköping has a section dedicated to 50 years of file-sharing and one of the top pieces is one of the first servers used by The Pirate Bay. According to the museum The Pirate Bay has become a contemporary historical phenomenon and the server signifies "a revolution that begun in a dark grey metal box under a bed."Source: ‘First’ Pirate Bay Server on Permanent Display in Computer Museum
Under continued pressure to take additional anti-piracy measures, file-hosting site RapidShare introduced a new business strategy last year. The model restricted the ability of all users to engage in third party public distribution, the most popular way of sharing copyrighted material. As a result the company experienced a significant drop in traffic and, according to a spokesman, a significant drop in copyright infringement too.Source: RapidShare: Traffic and Piracy Dipped After New Business Model Kicked In
The first ever certified BitTorrent Android box goes on sale today, allowing users to stream files downloaded with uTorrent wirelessly to their television. The new set-top box supports playback of all popular video formats and can also download torrents by itself, fully anonymously if needed. Source: Certified BitTorrent Box Brings uTorrent to Your TV
The traditional way for private BitTorrent trackers to keep their operations going is to accept donations from site users. Many sites, probably many hundreds, use PayPal to process these donations since it's the most convenient option for site members. However, these days PayPal isn't keen on doing business with file-sharing sites and is getting very demanding. Those demands now include receiving private tracker invitations so they can personally snoop behind the scenes.Source: PayPal Demands Invites to Private BitTorrent Trackers
Home Attorneys Contact Products Representative Clients Cases Search CO Records Services Workshops and Appearances Posts Photo Attorney Serving the Photographer's Legal Needs Diary of a Copyright Infringement Lawsuit 9 Written Discovery On 01.06.13, In Diary of a Copyright Infringement Lawsuit by Carolyn E . Wright The time between filing the lawsuit and the trial is used to prepare for trial . To prepare a case for trial , the litigants may conduct discovery . 8221 Parties may obtain discovery regarding any non-privileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense—including the existence , description , nature , custody , condition , and location of any documents or other tangible things and the identity and location of persons who know of any discoverable matter . The goal is