The Queen announces Internet disconnection bill

The Queen opened the UK parliamentary session yesterday and announced that an Internet disconnection bill would be coming soon. But will it actually be legal? arstechnica reports.

My Government will introduce a Bill to ensure the communications infrastructure is fit for the digital age, supports future economic growth, delivers competitive communications and enhances public service broadcasting," said Her Majesty, an innocuous description of the about-to-be-introduced Digital Economy bill.

"That bill will likely attempt to reduce Internet copyright infringement, as measured by UK telecoms regulator Ofcom, by 70 percent from its current levels over the next two years. It's also widely expected that the bill will give the Secretary of State certain abilities to expand the enforcement regime and to introduce new sanctions, regardless of what happens on the piracy front."

Read full article.

End of an Era: Pirate Bay Tracker Shuts Down

Do you know how BitTorrent works? I mean, really know the technology behind it? Even if you’re not all too familiar with it, you probably know that it requires a tracker – a computer that coordinates the distribution of a file within the network.

But the trick is, it doesn’t – not anymore. Two technologies called DHT and PEX enable trackerless BitTorrent; in the simplest of terms, the BitTorrent technology has evolved to the point where trackers are no longer necessary for operation. Thus, the folks over at The Pirate Bay have decided to permanently shut down the Pirate Bay tracker.

Read full article in Mashable.

Google seeks to turn a profit from YouTube copyright clashes

Google is is working to persuade music and video companies to cash in rather than clamp down when their content is uploaded on YouTube. The Guardian reports.

... First developed two years ago, the ContentID system is attracting record labels, TV producers and sports rights owners keen to make more money from the web.

Google's computers compare all the material uploaded to YouTube – around 20 hours every minute – against "ID files" from a 100,000-hour library of reference material from the rights holders. The system creates reports of what is viewed where and how often.

Read full article.

Italian Politician Tries To File Charges Against 4,609 YouTube Commenters

Mike Masnick for TechDirt points to a post on boingboing about a story coming out of Italy, concerning what appears to be a former politician with a... colorful past who is filing charges against, get this, YouTube commentors.

Salvatore Cuffaro (he was apparently found guilty of helping the Mafia), who is upset about the comments on a YouTube video that involves himself, but which is from the early 90s. So, he's "laid charges" against all 4,609 commenters (since then, many more have commented).

Court Orders The Pirate Bay To Delete Torrents

The Amsterdam court today ruled that The Pirate Bay must remove a list of copyrighted torrents from their website within three months. In addition they have to block Dutch users’ access to parts of the site where copyrighted torrent can be downloaded. If not, the three ‘operators’ will have to pay penalties of 5,000 euros ($7,500) per person, per day.

[via TorrentFreak]

Anti-Pirates Scare Kids with Propagandistic Comic Book

The Motion Picture Association has sent one of its big shot lobbyists to New Zealand to advocate tougher anti-piracy legislation, and to promote a propagandistic comic book set be handed out to thousands of local kids. Torrentfreak reports.

Interestingly, the comic doesn’t touch the subject of copyright. Instead it uses false threats to scare children and parents about the dangers of file-sharing.

Titled “Escape From Terror Byte City” the book tells the story of two young boys who attempt to download the latest Transformers movie from a P2P website. Of course, when the two fire-up their file-sharing software all hell breaks loose.

... A scanned copy of the full comic book is available on Mininova. This one’s going to be a collectors item, for sure.

French President Sarkozy Accused of DVD Piracy

Known for his anti-piracy views and behind the recently approved Hadopi three strikes law, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has once again been accused of being the pot that called the kettle black. According to Huffington Post via Switched, a French newspaper is reporting that Sarkozy illegally made 400 copies of a DVD and gave them to diplomats at a conference.

The film in question is a 52-minute documentary on Sarkozy, himself, called 'A visage decouvert: Nicolas Sarkozy.' The distributor only gave the president 50 copies, which, apparently, just wasn't enough. Sarkozy burned a few hundred more, but didn't stop there, either. The President, or whoever actually made the copies, worked up a new DVD jacket and replaced manufacturer Galaxie Presse's logo with that of Sarkozy's own presidential 'AV Service.'

Circumventing Geographic Restrictions

A large number of web services are geographically restricted, such as Hulu, Pandora and Spotify. The reasons are usually to do with content licensing restrictions, or because US visitors (or visitors from other advanced economies) are of a higher value from a monetization perspective. A web application can only guess at the location of a visitor based on an IP address and other information, such as browser language and regional settings. TechCrunch reports.

... The nature of the web means that geographically restricting web services is next to impossible, because those who are technically adept have known how to find and use proxy servers (both open and private) and VPN services to masquerade as being from another country.

The demand for such services has become so popular that more apps are being released that make this process almost as easy as installing any other application.

If you find yourself outside of the USA and wanting to watch Hulu, outside of the UK and wanting to checkout the BBC, or wanting to rig a web poll, check out tips from TechCrunch.

Related:

-- Hide My Ass gets around region-restricted videos

-- How to Watch Hulu Around the World

German Cinemas Must Warn Visitors Of ‘Anti-Pirate’ Goggles

Dozens of movie theaters worldwide have equipped their employees with night vision goggles to spy on customers, hoping to spot illegal recording devices. Following complaints alleging invasion of privacy, in Germany the local authorities ruled that theaters have to warn their customers if they use such equipment, rendering their piracy trap useless.

[via TorrentFreak]

Related:

-- US bill aims to jail film pirates

-- Military-style night-sights in cinemas for launch of "The Prisoner of Azkaban"

-- US cinema reward to stop piracy

-- Crackdown In Cinemas

-- Will You Be Arrested The Next Time You Bring Your Camera Phone To The Movies?

-- Five Years In Jail For Putting A Movie Online

-- Leave your picture phone outside the movie theater

-- Bag and body searches at screenings

Pirate Bay's Homepage Deleted From Google Search Results

Following a DMCA complaint filed with Google, the company's search index now doesn't feature the Pirate Bay's homepage anymore and the Pirate Bay's PageRank has been dropped to zero.

Read full article in ReadWriteWeb.

Update: According to Google, "the removal appears to be an internal error and not part of a DMCA request."

Firms issued TV licence warning

According to the BBC, businesses are being warned they could be breaking the law if staff watch live TV on their computers when the firm does not have a TV licence.

Shops, offices and other workplaces could be fined up to £1,000, the TV Licensing authority says.

The law covers live transmissions online and does not apply to catch-up services such as those on the iPlayer.

Read full article.

Warner Music Videos Heading Back to YouTube

Ending a nine-month standoff, YouTube said on Tuesday that it had reached an agreement with the Warner Music Group that would return the label’s music videos to the video Web site.

Warner Music had demanded that its videos be removed last December after licensing talks stalled with YouTube, a unit of Google. The deal means YouTube has agreements in place with the country’s four major record labels and four major publishers.

[via The New York Times]

Watching new TV shows from Switzerland

Its' been 3 years since I opened this blog and linked then to articles mentioning how copyright issues with foreign TV networks were being addressed. But I haven't crossed an article on that subject in almost as long.

Does it matter? Not really, from Switzerland I am able to enjoy the return of my favorite TV shows as well as watch the new shows that premiered this week (they won't be on TV here for months or years if at all). And there are some great shows: The Good Life, Mercy, The Beautiful Wife, Jay Leno. They are all available in streaming, usually a day or two after they air in the US, and amazingly, the number of streaming sites offering these shows just continues to grow, season after season.

Some of these streaming sites interrupt the viewing to make you fill out a survey, or pay up to continue viewing. They are finding a way, or trying to find a way to commercialize their service.

Why aren't the networks?

Related:

-- Hollywood whining about illegal streaming again

-- Embedded code of US TV series on video sharing sites spreads

-- Opinion: Why TV viewers resort to piracy

Pirate Bay buyer faces setbacks

The sale of file-sharing site The Pirate Bay has been hit by a further setback after its potential buyer was served with a bankruptcy petition, reports the BBC.

The document was filed with a Swedish court by a creditor of Global Gaming Factory (GGF), which outlined plans to buy the site in June.

The creditor - Advatar Systems - is claiming more than 1.3m kronor (£116,000) in unpaid debts.

It is the latest in a long series of hold-ups which have stalled the sale.

Veoh wins copyright case

A federal district court says Veoh, a Web video site that has come under legal fire from entertainment companies the past several years, is not liable for the copyright violations committed by its users, a decision that could help YouTube defend itself against Viacom's $1 billion copyright suit.

[via News.com]

Pirate Bay bidder kicked off Swedish stock market

The Swedish company that bid £4.7m to buy notorious file sharing website the Pirate Bay has been banned from trading shares on its stock exchange amid claims that it had "seriously violated" rules.

The move comes amid claims that Global Gaming Factory X took a "casual" approach to financial disclosures surrounding the bid, which it launched in June.

The company, which makes software and runs a chain of internet cafes, had shocked the technology and media industries by announcing that it planned to buy the Pirate Bay and turn it into a legitimate operation.

It proved particularly surprising coming just two months after four men were sentenced to prison and fined a total of £2.4m for their links to the controversial site.

[via The Guardian]

Pirate Bay website back online!

Never underestimate The Pirate Bay. They are back online. The BBC reports.

Stockholm district court made the order on 21 August, saying ISP Black Internet would be fined 500,000 kronor (£43,000 or $71,000) if it did not comply.

The court order was the result of legal action brought against The Pirate Bay by the music and film industry.

However, TPB was back online within a few hours with a new carrier.

In a press release, parodying Winston Churchill's famous speech of 1940, the Pirate Bay team said they would keep the site running "for years if necessary".

Yesterday: - The Final Curtain Falls for The Pirate Bay

The Final Curtain Falls for The Pirate Bay

The end of an era. The Pirate Bay has been shut down by its ISP.

[via Mashable]

UK. Illegal downloaders 'could have internet cut off'

According to The Telegraph, people who illegally download and fileshare films and music will have their internet connections cut off, under new laws set to be proposed by the British government.

Under the new rules, illegal filesharers will get warning letters, as proposed by Lord Carter's Digital Britain report in June, but if they continue to swap copyrighted material they will have their connection temporarily cut altogether, although they may still have access to basic public services.

Read full article.

Related:

-- Illegal downloaders 'face UK ban'

-- French three strikes" online copyright infringement bill

Pirates look forward to business

Following several high-profile court cases, more and more previously illegal file-sharing services are trying to reinvent themselves as legitimate businesses. The BBC reports.

However, it is not just the threat of legal action that has caused the change of heart, say some industry watchers.

"They have realised they can make money out of it," said Eddy Leviten of the UK's Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact).

"They have advertising on their sites and, as those sites attract more eyeballs, they are getting more advertising income."

Read full article.

In the UK, university-bound students get TV Licence warning

TV Licensing is issuing specific advice for students who plan on watching live TV online. Research by TV Licensing shows that 80 per cent of students now take a laptop to university in their first year and 40 per cent use it as their main way to watch TV. The Shuttle reports.

You need a TV Licence to watch or record TV programs, irrespective of what channel you are watching, what device you are using (TV, computer, laptop, mobile phone or any other) and how you receive them (terrestrial, satellite, cable, via the Internet or any other way).

If you do not have a license you risk prosecution and a fine of up to £1,000.

That means that if you are watching or recording live broadcasts via the BBC iPlayer you need to be covered by a TV Licence. If you are only watching or downloading programmes that have already been broadcast using the iPlayer or other internet services, a licence is not required.

'Hundred people an hour' joining Pirate Party UK

The Pirate Party, a political group which hopes to legalise internet filesharing, has attracted a huge number of new members since announcing its plans to contest seats at the next election. The Telegraph reports.

Andrew Peter Robinson, the leader of the Pirate Party, said they had been flooded by enquiries from people who wanted to join the group. At its peak, he said, around 100 people an hour were signing up to become party members.

Previously: - Pirate Party UK now registered by the Electoral Commission

Pirate Party UK now registered by the Electoral Commission

Sweden’s Pirate Party, created to lobby for more free content on the internet, is now an officially recognised political party in the UK.

This means the group can now have a Pirate Party candidate standing at the next general election.

[via The Telegraph]

The Pirate Bay Ordered To Close In The Netherlands

The Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has won its court case against The Pirate Bay. The Amsterdam court today ruled that the site must cease all operations in The Netherlands within 10 days, or else pay penalties of 30,000 euros ($42,300) a person, per day.

If they don’t comply all defendants will be ordered to pay 30,000 euros ($42,300) per day in penalties up to a maximum of 3 million euros ($4,231,000) total.

[via TorrentFreak]

Pirate Bay Sale on Life Support

The Pirate Bay acquisition may not happen after all. Multiple sources are reporting that the acquisition may be cancelled in one week’s time if Global Gaming X AB can’t provide investor guarantees. It doesn’t help that the major studios are suing it, either.

[via Mashable]

Pirate Bay faces new legal threat

File-sharing website The Pirate Bay faces a new volley of legal action because "they have not stopped their activities after they were sentenced to prison". The BBC reports..

... The lawsuit has been brought by Columbia Pictures, Disney Enterprises, Universal Studios and 10 other firms, many of which were due to receive damages form the April settlement.

Post-Pirate Bay, a Federated Tracker Network Emerges

The Pirate Bay’s impending sale has been worrying BitTorrent users around the world. One reason for these worries is that the Swedish pirate platform has been the backbone of many of the web’s BitTorrent sites and communities. The New York Times /GigaOM report.

Take the Pirate Bay’s tracker servers away, and sites like Mininova would be left in a dry spell, with users unable to download pretty much anything at all.

However, two weeks after the announcement of the sale, it looks like the often-feared BitTorrent meltdown won’t happen. Not only are new trackers popping up everywhere, ready to fill the gap, but there’s also some new technology that could help interconnect these trackers to a giant, federated mesh network without any single point of failure.

Read full article.

Stop worrying, Hollywood – nobody is stealing your films with mobiles

Cory Doctorow has a piece in The Guardian explaining why it's awfully dumb for a theater to confiscate cellphones at a preview screening: Nobody's pirating movies with a cellphone, and real leaks come from inside the industry.

[via Gizmodo]

Related: - Crackdown In Cinemas

French "3 strikes" law returns, now with judicial oversight!

The French Senate has approved an updated version of the "three strikes" online copyright infringement bill aimed at taking repeat offenders offline. The approval comes exactly one month after the country's Constitutional Council ripped apart the previous version of the Création et Internet law. The nouveau version of the bill attempts to get around the constitutional limitations by moving the final decision to cut off users' Internet accounts to the courts.

[via arstechnica. Image from Geek.com]

Previously

-- France govt goes into spin mode to salvage three-strikes law

-- France ignores EU and passes antipiracy law

-- Once Again, France Will Vote on Piracy

-- EU undermines Sarkozy's plan to to Fight Illegal Downloads

-- French reject Internet Piracy Law

-- Sarkozy move to punish illegal downloaders sparks liberties row

-- Assembly approves Sarkozy plan for French television

-- European Parliament says "no" to disconnecting P2P users

-- Illegal downloaders 'face UK ban'

-- French plan e-mail warnings for illegal downloads

Innocents accused of net piracy

Some 20 net users have come forward claiming they have been wrongly accused of illegally sharing video games, reports the BBC.

They face the threat of court action - or fines of up to £665 - for sharing copyrighted games.

Some 6,000 letters have been sent out by law firm ACS Law, on behalf of firms such as Reality Pump and Topware Interactive, who are the copyright owners of video games Two Worlds and Dream Pinball respectively.

Read full article.

The Pirate Bay Will Close Its Tracker and Remove Torrents

Alongside the news that The Pirate Bay will sell shares on the Swedish stock market come some other significant changes. The site itself will decentralize and stop hosting and tracking torrents. Instead, The Pirate Bay will use a third party tracker and torrent hosting service to serve its users.

[via Torrent Freak]

The Pirate Bay Sold To Software Company, Goes Legal

According to gaming company Global Gaming Factory X, it is in the the process of acquiring The Pirate Bay for $7.8m (SEK 60 million). The acquisition is scheduled to be completed by August and will see the site launch new business models to compensate content providers and copyright owners.

[via Torrent Freak]

Automated Legal Threats Turn Piracy Into Profit

Piracy watchdog Nexicon has found the ultimate way to turn piracy into profit for the fresh copyright holders added to their clientele. They offer alleged file-sharers the chance to settle for $10 per downloaded song or an equal amount for a pirated movie. If you decide not to settle, they promise to bankrupt you in court. TorrentFreak reports.

... Nexicon launched its Getamnesty program which offers copyright holders a chance to turn piracy into profit. They cleverly circumvent privacy protection laws by using ISPs to forward settlement requests for various copyright holders to alleged infringers.

Read full article.

Pirate Bay founders launch beta of The Video Bay, a streaming video site

The developers behind The Pirate Bay team have been developing a video streaming site called The Video Bay for the past two years, and an "extreme beta" version of the project is available.

Users can share video clips here without having to fear concerns they may be removed over copyright claims, as with the current dominant video-sharing service, YouTube.

[via boingboing]

Pirate Bay judge ruled unbiased

The judge in the Pirate Bay case, Tomas Norström, was not biased, reports News.com.

That's the decision of the Swedish High Court of Justice, which investigated accusations made by the four defendants in the high-profile file-sharing case.

The accusations were based on Norström's membership in organizations such as the Swedish Copyright Association, which counts among its members lawyers who represented the plaintiffs during The Pirate Bay trial.

The court ascertained that such memberships do demonstrate a commitment to intellectual property issues, which could be considered by some to be in the interest of the plaintiffs. But it also pointed out that rights-holders' rights are protected by the Constitution, and so cannot be considered a conflict of interest if a judge endorses the principles behind copyright laws.

... On April 17, the four defendants were found guilty of having made 33 copyright-protected files accessible for illegal file-sharing via the Piratebay.org Web site and were sentenced to one year in jail.

They were also ordered to pay a total of 30 million Swedish kronor ($3.8 million) in damages to copyright holders, among them a number of American media giants.

Digital Biz Found in translation: China's volunteer online army

Dozens of subfans exist in China. They are voluntary and are translating a mix of media, from books and magazines to games, TV shows and movies. The translated products are for an audience whose primary means of accessing foreign entertainment is the Internet. CNN reports.

The members of these online translations groups participate out of a desire to improve their English. For many there is also a passionate interest in overseas content and a desire to make it accessible to other Chinese people.

Translation team members download TV shows through different methods: watching directly from a Web site or downloading from a translation group Web site. Clips can also be downloaded through BitTorrent -- file-sharing sites such as Xunlei. Through this method, groups post their "seeds" on these sites, and people can download them.

The translation teams acknowledge that what they are doing is less than legal and say they do worry that someday they may be forced to quit (so far there are no reports of a group being shut down).

"We are living in this grey zone," said Deping Wang, a former member of a team called 1000fr. "It is not legal, but at the same time, nobody can live without it. This is the dilemma."

Many international media companies are concerned the groups are eroding their potential profit margins in China by illegally making the content available for free. Some, however, see the translation groups' efforts as a conduit for cultivating a market that will be willing to buy content if it is allowed to be distributed through official avenues in the future.

Read full article.

Related articles on subfans:

-- Subfans - US TV series, uploaded onto video sharing sites right after their broadcast, are often translated into another language with subtitles within hours.

-- TF1 Vision: Yesterday on US TV, Today on TF1 Vision - In September 2007, French network TFI1, launched a special section on their website called TFI Vision, which enables French (only) viewers to purchase episodes of US TV series that aired just 24 hours before on American television.

-- Fansubbers Are Not Thieves, But Avid Consumers - Another prominent subbing community has closed its doors - and has launched a campaign to show the movie industry that they are not thieves, but avid consumers.

-- Anti-Piracy Action Closes Yet More Subfan Sites - Recent months have seen fresh efforts to silence sites that provide fan-created translations of movies and TV shows for their home countries. The latest targets for shutdown - Israel and France.

-- Subfans - Who are these people, who spend hours translating entire episodes for the benefit of others.

-- Subfans: the tools they use - Keskidi is a new tool for subfans - non US TV fans who translate entire episodes for the benefit of others - as well as anyone else who want their videos to reach an international audience.

Pirate Bay turns into 'private' bay

According to TechRadar, beta testing has started on a new 'encrypted virtual private network', which will move some of the Pirate Bay's file-sharing shenanigans through closed doors.

The private network will allow Pirate Bay to separate some of its traffic from its original website and add in authentication.

Currently, the network is being tested by 3,000 people and according to the Register, a further 180,000 are waiting for the green-light to board the Pirate Bay's private file-sharing ship.

Read full article.

Major UK ISP: video streaming's "free ride" is over

Major UK Internet provider BT, one of the UK's largest ISPs says that the "free ride" is over for popular Web services like video streaming, which are building "very profitable business models" by using ISP pipes. In BT's view, it's time for streaming video to pay up for better service. ars technica reports.

BT appears to be saying that high-bandwidth video streaming, in particular, is just too expensive to offer without limits on its cheapest plan.

That plan, called "Option 1," offers 10GB/month of data transfer, imposes throttling on P2P connections during parts of the day, throttles anyone who's a "heavy user," and places a limit of 896Kbps on video streaming services between 5pm and midnight.

BT's own "fair usage policy" spells all this out, which makes the discrimination legal in the UK.

Read full article.

France govt goes into spin mode to salvage three-strikes law

The French government said that it plans to go ahead with a graduated response law even after a censure from the Constitutional Council; a few tweaks and the program will be back in business. Others aren't so sure. ars technica reports.

In a statement issued yesterday, French Culture Minister Christine Albanel said that the ruling pleased her because "the principle of a pedagogical device to stop piracy was validated." Sure, there were some minor problems—like the fact that the whole setup violated the 1789 Rights of Man—but such defects can be corrected.

French Court Defangs Plan to Crack Down on Internet Piracy

The highest constitutional body in France on Wednesday defanged the government’s plan to cut off the Internet connections of digital pirates, saying the authorities had no right to do so without obtaining court approval. [via The New York Times]

The decision, by the Constitutional Council, which reviews legislation approved by Parliament before it goes into effect, is a major setback for the music and movie industries, which had praised the French law as a model solution to the problem of illegal file-sharing.

... The council said the proposal was contrary to French constitutional principles, like the presumption of innocence and freedom of speech. The latter right “implies today, considering the development of the Internet, and its importance for the participation in democratic life and the expression of ideas and opinions, the online public’s freedom to access these communication services,” the council said.

Pirate Bay: In search of an unbiased judge

The search for unbiased judges in the high-profile Pirate Bay case in Sweden seems never-ending, reports News.com.

Fnding legal authorities who are not connected to the people involved in the case is apparently difficult in a country that counts only 9 million inhabitants.

Shortly after the verdict was delivered in mid-April, sentencing the four defendants to jail for one year for having assisted in making 33 copyright-protected files available for distribution, Judge Tomas Norström was accused of having a conflict of interest.

... Court President Fredrik Wersäll appointed Judge Ulrika Ihrfeldt to investigate the conflict of interest. But shortly afterward, Ihrfeldt revealed that she also had been a member of the Swedish Copyright Association and was removed from the case.

Read full article.

Hollywood launches action against European TV website

Two of Hollywood's most powerful studios are suing European web video startup Zattoo, amid claims that it is illegally profiting from broadcasting their movies online. The Guardian reports.

Lawyers for Universal and Warner Bros claim that the Swiss website - which rebroadcasts a number of television stations live online - is adding advertising to films that are shown on German TV via its peer-to-peer online service.

Zattoo has responded by saying that the adverts in question are merely those shown on TV by the German broadcasters ARD and ZDF, and that it is operating legally under a licensing deal with the two companies. However, a court in Hamburg has ordered Zattoo to stop showing streams for the two stations until the case is resolved.

The site rebroadcasts a number of stations live online - either from stations with public service funding, or through licensing deals. It currently shows channels from broadcasters including the BBC, Eurosport, MTV Germany and Al Jazeera and boasts more than 4m users worldwide.

Read full article.

Video explains fair use for video

Making a video and hoping not to get sued? Check out American University's Center for Social Media Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video, now with video explanation.

[via boingboing]

RealNetworks Sues Studios on Antitrust Grounds

Escalating its already simmering court battle with Hollywood, Real Networks has sued the six major Hollywood movie studios and the DVD Copy Control Association, a cross-industry consortium, in federal court in northern California.

[Techmeme via Bits Blog]

Swedish government tries to collect fine from The Pirate Bay

The Swedish government's official enforcement bureau told The Pirate Bay defendants that it wants nearly half of their total fine paid right away, and it will be freezing bank accounts until it gets the money. Meanwhile, new questions surface about the judge's links to pro-copyright organizations.

[via arstechnica]