The MPA action against Newzbin2 was extremely important for the Hollywood group – no other site had ever been blocked in the UK on copyright grounds before.

Before long it was confirmed that in addition to BT, other UK ISPs had been asked to block Newzbin2 on the same grounds, but the ruling was also helpful in other ways.

Through its UK anti-piracy proxy FACT, the Federation Against Copyright Theft, the MPA almost immediately targeted NZBsRus, another Usenet site with a similar function to Newzbin2. A legal threat or two directed towards NZBsRus’ host took the site offline last month.

Now, and despite our initial predictions, the site is back online. TorrentFreak tracked down the person who we had previously identified as the owner of NZBsRus who told us that having acquired the site in 2005 and running it with a team of like-minded individuals for four years, eventually things proved too much.

“In 2009 I had a few financial issues and was made an offer for NZBsRus which I accepted,” he told us. In order to smooth the takeover, the former owner says he stayed on the site for a short transitional period, and overlooked a seamless changeover to the site’s new owners.

But he still had a connection to the site via a reseller hosting account, meaning that 2 years later the bad news that the site had problems was relayed to him quickly.

“The server company relayed to FACT that I was just the main reseller of the account and was not responsible for payment of the server lease for the server NZBsRus was hosted on, which hopefully cleared things up for FACT, although I have tried to contact them myself with no response,” TorrentFreak was informed.

But while the site’s former owner tells us he is now in the corporate SEO business, the site’s reappearance shows that the people who took over NZBsRus in 2009 aren’t in a mood to quit serving up NZBs anytime soon.

“We do not reside in the UK so we are not bound by UK law, which we are very happy about as the UK always pass judgment without knowing specifics!” they told us. “The only reason nzbsrus.com was forced offline was because the site was still hosted on a UK server, which we took over from the previous owner.”

It seems that NZBsRus had remained on its previous hosting for good reason (moving it was simply too much trouble) but the takedown forced the owners’ hand. After ordering servers and waiting for them to be deployed, the giant task of moving and decompressing 100GB+ of site data was grudgingly undertaken.

“The files we are hosting are just like torrents and mere text files so the sooner those like FACT get there FACTS straight and realize that, the sooner they will realize they are wasting time & resources chasing the wrong people!” they add.

Of course the “right people” (if there are any, safe harbor permitting), are the Usenet hosting companies where the actual infringing content resides, so the really big question is what happens if/when SOPA springs into action. Will it provide the content industries with the tools to smash the likes of XSNews, Giganews, Newshosting (Highwinds) and all the rest into oblivion by blocking their domains and removing their payment processors on the basis that they aren’t doing enough to prevent infringement?

Think not? The ball is already rolling. Only last month Hollywood, through its Dutch proxy BREIN, forced the closure of News-Service, formerly one of Europe’s largest Usenet hosting companies, because the 15-year-old company was unable to comply with a court order forcing it to filter out all infringing content.

But according to Aldor Nini of anti-piracy solutions company Easycom, the technology for proactively filtering out infringing Usenet content already exists.

“Costs to do it would not be higher than 30% of News-Service’s annual profit – as far as I have checked documents which are related to their income – so I do not see a technical, and not even a commercial reason not to do it,” Aldor told TorrentFreak.

Easycom works with Hollywood and other rights holders so it begs the question: Does the SOPA definition of website liability (“taking, or has taken, deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability of the use of the website” to commit copyright infringement) include the refusal to install Hollywood and recording industry sanctioned proactive copyright filters?

If Hollywood can take out News-Service with existing legislation in the Netherlands, SOPA should make the takedown of the others child’s play, and if that happens the usefulness of NZBsRus and indeed Newzbin2 for any type of content could potentially be reduced to close to nil, and no amount of relocation or website blocking countermeasures will be able to do anything about that.

Source: Site Shrugs Off Hollywood Shutdown Attempt, But Here Comes SOPA

Popularity: unranked [?]

Although widely condemned by anti-censorship proponents, there can be little doubt that the MPA win over UK ISP BT, which last week culminated in the latter being ordered to block Newzbin2 within 14 days, is a historic one.

No other site has ever been blocked in the UK on copyright grounds before, and based on the reasoning behind the decision, Newzbin2 won’t be the last either.

The MPA is now working away in the background to come to agreements with other UK ISPs so that they too will block Newzbin2, but the ruling is a powerful tool – do other sites really want to get beaten over the head with it?

One site that didn’t, but now has been, is UK-based NZBsRus. According to the site’s owner, on Friday his site received a cease and desist notice from FACT, the Federation Against Copyright Theft.

While FACT, the MPAA’s UK proxy, are veterans of cases against sites such as TV-Links and FileSoup, in recent times they have usually got the police in to provide the muscle. According to unconfirmed information from an anonymous source, this time pressure was applied to NZBsRus’ host, but when they failed to take the site down quickly enough FACT targeted the owner of the site instead.

NZBsRus, which provided similar services to Newzbin2, was a much-loved site and naturally its users have been asking why it can’t simply be transferred to a more friendly host to avoid FACT. The site operators, however, aren’t giving off signals which suggest that’s going to happen any time soon. And that’s hardly surprising.

It took TorrentFreak a ridiculously short amount of time to personally identify and locate the owner of NZBsRus. Unfortunately for the owner, this means that FACT knows exactly who he is too. And when the big boys know where you live, things can get messy if you don’t play ball. They knew where the original Newzbin guys lived, and no one can deny that ended pretty badly.

Despite the protestations of NZBsRus that they are “just a search engine” and that they “don’t break the law”, given their lack of anonymity and the High Court’s stance against Newzbin2, their position seems hopeless. Besides, even if NZBsRus were on solid ground and up for a fight, the battle of who can afford to fight the case in court is already lost.

One reassurance that has come from the site is that private user information “is safe” and logs of user downloads haven’t been kept. NZBsRus might come back in some shape or form, but at this stage it seems highly unlikely that any return will be business as usual.

Source: After Newzbin2 Win, MPA Takes Down Another Usenet Service

Popularity: unranked [?]

To many in the business world, using strong-arm tactics against companies whose help you need to achieve your aims is something to be avoided. It creates bad feeling and can be somewhat counter-productive. Issuing threats to potential business partners is hardly an indication that those relationships are going the right way.

Nevertheless, this is the position Australia’s ISPs find themselves in today. They have a written ultimatum from the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, the anti-piracy group financed by the big Hollywood studios. Received last week, the memo gives the ISPs until close of business today to give their commitment to entering into talks to hinder online file-sharing – or suffer the consequences.

This aggressive approach has already “rubbed up” Exetel boss John Linton “the wrong way”, as Aussies might put it. He has declared that he won’t be responding to AFACT’s threats. Now, according to a new report and contrary to the result hoped for by AFACT, another ISP is trying to form a coalition with its rivals to fend off Hollywood’s demands.

A Telstra spokeswoman quoted by The Australian has confirmed that the ISP is liaising with the Communications Alliance to develop an industry-wide response to AFACT.

“Telstra remains open to discussing how we might assist copyright holders to enforce their private property rights. Given this is an industrywide issue Telstra has encouraged discussions to be facilitated by the Communications Alliance,” she said.

The Communications Alliance was set up to provide a unified voice for the Australian telecommunications industry, offer contributions to policy development and ensure the protection of consumer interests. A spokesperson confirmed that the organization is working with the ISPs to find “an industry-led solution” to online copyright issues.

Rather than adopt ISP suggestions that are unlikely to go far enough for Hollywood, AFACT appears to prefer a fairly aggressive approach to infringement touted by Judge Arthur Emmett during the iiNet trial.

Throwing their 3-cornered hats into the mix, Pirate Party Australia have rejected not only Emmett’s suggestions, but also the manner in which AFACT have approached the ISPs.

“Pirate Party Australia is opposed to the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft’s (AFACT) latest offensive against Australian internet users,” the party said in a statement.

“AFACT’s alleged extreme demands would require ISPs to notify their customers of infringements as alleged by AFACT and disconnect them if they do not respond within 7 days.

“These veiled threats are nothing more than intimidation tactics that once again clearly display the extent that Big Media will go to in their failing attempts to protect their flawed business models. Extortion is a new low even for AFACT,” says Acting Secretary, Brendan Molloy.

“It is completely inappropriate to have closed-room discussions even before the iiNet court case has concluded, and even more inappropriate to make veiled threats to begin yet another court case for not attending these ‘voluntary talks’.”

The party concludes by urging ISPs to unite against AFACT and refuse to become their copyright enforcement officers.

Involving the Communications Alliance in AFACT discussions would seem to be a sensible move by the ISPs. In the light of this development it remains to be seen whether AFACT still feels inclined to go ahead with whatever action lies behind today’s deadline.

Source: As ISPs Mull Pact To Fight AFACT, Pirate Party Condemns ‘Extortion’

Popularity: 1% [?]

Last week the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) showed the country’s Internet service providers that far from giving up in their battle against unauthorized file-sharing, they would in fact be stepping up the pressure.

Although AFACT is still engaged in legal proceedings against ISP iiNet, having lost the latest round of action in a case now destined for the appeal court, the carefully weighed rhetoric coming from the Hollywood-backed group speaks volumes.

“AFACT has always been open to discussions and negotiations with ISPs,” said an AFACT spokesperson last week on the back of news that it has been ‘inviting’ ISPs to join them in ‘negotiations’ about dealing with online piracy.

“This is simply an invitation to ISPs to engage with us to fulfil their obligations.”

Last week Delimiter reported that the letter sent by AFACT to ISPs highlights points from the most recent hearing in the iiNet case that the movie group feels went in their favor.

It now seems clear that despite losing that round AFACT is moving now – before the appeal – to pressure the ISPs into coming on board. So what do they want? According to The Australian, who have seen a copy of a letter sent to ISP Exetel, they want “a system of graduated responses to online piracy.”

But rather than an approaching talks on a mutually beneficial and friendly footing, AFACT has chosen to do so on the back of threats that are so thinly-veiled the ISPs can be in little doubt about what might be coming next.

The ISPs have until this Wednesday to accept AFACT’s invitation to voluntarily join talks or they will face “unspecified action”.

Exetel boss John Linton said that the wording in the letter could not be seen “as anything other than a threat.”

According to a source quoted by The Australian, AFACT will be relying heavily on statements made during the iiNet case by appeal court judge Arthur Emmett in order to generate leverage against the ISPs.

In a nutshell, Emmett suggested that customers should be warned that an infringement has taken place via their account and they should be given a certain time, say 7 days, to respond to the allegation. If no response should arrive then the ISP could suspend the account until one does. During the iiNet case itself, Judge Emmett suggested going even further for repeat infringers.

“Maybe the stage is reached where it’s reasonable to say, ‘Look, you’ve had warning after warning. Maybe you’re doing other lawful things, but if you insist on doing this unlawful activity, we’re going to close you down’.” No surprise then that Hollywood like Emmett’s style.

In their ongoing attempts to meet AFACT somewhere in the middle, during March this year iiNet came up with proposals for dealing with the issue of infringement, outlined in the diagram below.

“iiNet has developed a model which addresses ISP concerns but one we think remains attractive to all participants, including the sustainable strategy of an impartial referee for the resolution of disputes and the issue of penalties for offenders,” explained iiNet chief Michael Malone at the time. He doesn’t seem to be moving from this stance today.

“The rights holders need to provide cogent and unequivocal evidence, which means a transparent and robust collection process, tested by an independent body, such as the judiciary,” said Malone.

So the question remains – will the ISPs respond to the veiled threats of AFACT and agree to meet, or will they call Hollywood’s bluff and wait for the outcome of the iiNet appeal instead?

One thing is for certain, Exetel boss John Linton says he doesn’t respond to threats and won’t be complying. We should know later this week if others take the same stance.

Source: Graduated Piracy Response Coming To Australia, Or Else

Popularity: unranked [?]

Founded in 2003, UK-based FileSoup is one of the original torrent sites. It outlived many of the sites that sprung up around the time and developed a great community in the years that followed.

The site never ran into any significant problems with copyright holders, but this quickly changed in the summer of 2009 when police and the Hollywood-backed Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) conducted a raid on the home address of the site’s owner Steve Lanning, known online as ‘TheGeeker’.

The arrest came as a total surprise to Lanning, who felt that the police didn’t follow the rules as they should have. In addition to blindly acting on biased information provided to them by a self-interested anti-piracy group, Lanning summed up a total 56 complaints which he filed at the complaints commission late August 2009, shortly after his arrest.

Earlier this year the authorities dropped Lanning’s case (and the case of a fellow admin) because the evidence was solely provided by FACT and thus unreliable. While this was a huge relief and a welcome victory for Lanning, he was still waiting for a response to the 56 complaints filed earlier.

A few weeks ago he finally heard back from the police investigator, but it was by no means the response hoped for by Lanning. In a brief reply the police investigator reduced the 56 complaints down to just 3, and only in one case did the police admit a mistake was made.

“Mr Lanning was not given the right to telephone someone after the restriction had been lifted. The Sergeant in question will receive management action which will be in the form of words of advice from his line manager,” the police investigator writes.

Needless to say, Lanning wasn’t too happy with the fact that the other 53 complaints were simply ignored. He says he has evidence to back up every single complaint but for some reason the police investigator didn’t even consider them.

“There are no words that can adequately describe exactly how I am feeling right now, they have blatantly lied, and as if that isn’t bad enough, they have ignored the evidence which proves all of my complaints against them …and we are supposed to trust the police? Is this what people can expect of our justice system? Unbelievable!” Lanning told TorrentFreak in a comment.

Lanning’s complaints

After giving it some thought Lanning has now decided to fight the result of the police investigation, hoping that they will then take a closer look at the complaints. He has filed an appeal with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

“I am following through with this as a matter of principle, what they have done and the way they have done it is reprehensible, the police being used and manipulated by a private organisation for their own ends is totally wrong in so many ways,” Lanning told us.

“The police failed to follow their own policies and procedures as set out in the Police And Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), they abused their authority and the legal system, not only that, the way I was treated and the way I now feel, they violated any trust I might have had in them, everyone should be appalled, it could be you next time!”

“What makes this whole situation even worse is that they are now lying to try and cover this whole fiasco up. I have evidence proving that they lied, they also have evidence proving they are lying, hmmm… what do you reckon on the chances of them mysteriously losing or erasing that evidence all of a sudden?” FileSoup’s owner said.

Some might wonder why Lanning would continue to follow this up even though his case was dropped earlier this year. He is a free man now and no longer at risk of being prosecuted for his involvement with FileSoup. Lanning, however, wants to see the police admit their alleged wrongdoings.

The arrest, the police investigation and the court case made a huge impact on the BitTorrent admin’s personal life. Many of his belongings taken during the raid were trashed or never returned, but the emotional roller-coaster and the failed attempts to have his many complaints heard have also taken their toll.

“I am after justice, it’s plain and simple, those who have done wrong need to be held accountable and those wrongs put right, the system needs to be changed drastically and things put in place to avoid this happening again in the future,” Lanning said.

“It’s about time that somebody physically makes a stand for their principles to stop this type of abuse from happening, if that someone has to be me, well then so be it.”

Source: BitTorrent Admin Continues Fight Against Police Abuse

Popularity: 1% [?]

Kino.to has been a thorn in the side for the movie industry for many years. The movie streaming portal is particularly popular in German-speaking countries, and with four million visitors a day it was among the 100 most-visited websites in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

This success ended abruptly a few hours ago. The site was pulled offline by a joint police operation involving officers from Germany, Spain, France and the Netherlands. In Germany alone 250 officers assisted in the raids, assisted by 17 computer specialists.

Acting upon a warrant from the General Prosecutor in Dresden, police have arrested a total of 13 people thus far. A 14th person is still being hunted. The arrestees are suspected of involvement in a criminal organization with the purpose of committing professional copyright infringement.

Following the raids Kino.to has been effectively shut down and at the time of writing displays the following message:

“The domain of the site you are trying to access was closed on suspicion of forming a criminal organization to commit professional copyright infringement.”

“Several operators of KINO.TO were arrested.”

“Internet users who illegally pirated or distributed copies of films may be subjected to a criminal prosecution.”

Commenting on the raids the German Federation Against Copyright Theft (GVU) claims that Kino.to made “significant revenue” through a “parasitic business model.” GVU states that Kino.to was working closely with the sites that hosted the copyrighted films, and that they profited from commercial partnerships with these companies.

The Dresden prosecutor confirmed in a press release that Kino.to was making millions of euros in profits.

Although the site was most popular in German-speaking countries, it didn’t escape the eye of the MPAA either. A few months ago the MPAA listed Kino.to as one of the main “notorious markets” in their submission to the U.S. Government.

“This linking site specializes in illegally making available large amounts of copyrighted cinema films and TV series in German and other languages. There are currently over 300,000 infringing TV shows and over 66,000 infringing movies available,” the MPAA wrote at the time.

Last month an Austrian ISP was served with a preliminary injunction forcing it to block subscriber access to Kino.to following complaints from Verein für Anti-Piraterie der österreichischen Film und Videobranche (VAP) – the anti-piracy association of the Austrian film and video industry.

Source: Kino.to Raided In Massive Police Operation, Admins Arrested

Popularity: 1% [?]

For quite a few years the Hollywood-funded Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) has been tipping-off the UK police on the activities of file-sharing websites and their operators.

This has resulted in the arrests of several site admins including those from TV-Links and BitTorrent site FileSoup.

A few days ago a FACT investigation led to another arrest. A 26-year old man was arrested Wednesday with police reportedly seizing £83,000 and computer equipment following a raid in Derry, Northern Ireland.

After being questioned the man was released on bail, a very similar situation to other FACT-assisted arrests we’ve seen over the years. Other than that, the police haven’t released any information on the site in question or the exact nature of any alleged offenses.

However, after some digging TorrentFreak can with near certainty conclude that the man in question is connected to the video streaming website “Fast Pass TV”. The site’s Twitter account – which was recently deleted – an associated email address and various other trails all point to a man (P. M.) in Derry, Northern Ireland.

Another source later confirmed that the man from Derry is indeed the operator of “Fast Pass TV.”

Fastpass.eu

The website in question did not store any video material but merely linked to third party sites. “Fast Pass TV does not host, store, or distribute any of the videos listed on the site and only link to user submitted content that is freely available on the Internet,” it stated on the website.

Fastpasstv.eu went offline around the time of the arrest leaving 68,287 registered members and hundreds of thousands of daily visitors in the dark. Without official confirmation from the authorities we can’t conclude that Fastpasstv.eu was the primary site FACT was after, but all signs point in that direction.

The arrest and the involvement of FACT are interesting, since the UK police have failed to convict any of the previously arrested operators of file-sharing or streaming sites. Most relevant to this case is the previous action against TV-Links.co.uk, a site which operated a service comparable to that offered by Fastpasstv.eu.

Legal action was taken against TV-Links.co.uk but eventually its operators won their lengthy trial. This set a precedent at least in the UK/European Union that under certain conditions these website owners do not do anything illegal. According to Section 17 of the European Commerce Directive, TV-Links was seen as a conduit of information and was afforded a complete defense in criminal proceedings for linking to other websites.

Whether the police are going to walk down the same path again, or whether the site operator was arrested for an unrelated crime is something the future will tell. However, it appears that Fastpasstv.eu has already made a comeback as fastpasstv.ms, where the recent seizures are also referenced. TorrentFreak could not verify the validity of the new site.

Source: Fastpasstv Shuts Down After U.K. Arrest

Popularity: unranked [?]

While sites like The Pirate Bay grab most of the headlines in the BitTorrent world, there is another thriving part of the eco-system which attracts much less attention. The Internet currently plays host to many hundreds, probably thousands, of so-called private BitTorrent trackers.

These sites usually require an invitation to become a part of and tend to be much more organized than their public counterparts. Not that public sites are disorganized as such, but with limited resources and means of generating funds for survival, admins on private sites tend to keep a relatively tight leash on members and content availability in order to keep their sites healthy.

SceneTorrents – The Untold Story

One such site, SceneTorrents (ScT), had been working the private scene for nearly 4.5 years but on 27th November 2009, it all came crashing down. Filling an initial information vacuum in which rumor spread like wildfire, staff eventually said that the site would close forever, citing “pending legal issues.”

“Well ScT started in 2005 and apart from the odd take down request by Warner and a few others, things were plain sailing!” ex-owner of ScT ‘Feeling’ told TorrentFreak.

“Roll on 27th November 2009, the police turn up at my door at 6am – two detectives, a few police and a Proceeds of Crime officer.”

Of course, for those growing ever more familiar with anti-piracy enforcement in the UK – particularly those following the failed legal actions against TV-Links and FileSoup – the police were not on their own.

Along with the police came two investigators from FACT – the Hollywood-funded Federation Against Copyright Theft.

“The police handcuffed me and arrested me for copyright theft and money laundering,” Feeling told us.

“They then asked me to show them every room in the house before leading me off down my driveway and then into the back of a police van. In the mean time I see more FACT officers enter my home to search it while I was in the back of the van. At 6am in winter it is mighty cold, I can tell you that!”

Feeling was then driven a few miles to the nearest big police station where he was taken into custody and held in a cell. Several hours later his questioning began.

Interrogation

Led by a Detective Chief Inspector and joined by a Proceeds of Crime officer and one investigator from FACT, Feeling was accompanied by a duty solicitor.

“The police started off asking me about ScT, how long it had been running, my part in it and my knowledge of what was going on. They also questioned me about other sites I had no part in but they thought I did,” Feeling explained.

“The FACT guy sat there most of the time just listening, and he would chirp in now and then with his limited knowledge of BitTorrent and P2P.”

While Feeling notes that FACT had limited knowledge of what they were investigating, the police had even less idea.

“The police did not know a single thing about BitTorrent, P2P or anything else like that,” he explains. “I found it quiet disappointing that FACT had told the police that I was a major criminal to get them to arrest me and search my house.”

Convincing the police that file-sharing site operators are major criminals is a speciality of FACT – they have managed that in many cases already including TV-Links, FileSoup, SurfTheChannel and AradiTracker, to name a few.

Hunted down by Hollywood, with help from unlikely allies

The FACT officer present had a file in his possession which contained photographs of Feeling, but quite how they tracked Feeling down to his home address has never been revealed – he didn’t have his name or address on the site’s server bills or PayPal account.

However, TorrentFreak put it to Feeling that enemies of SceneTorrents were perhaps not to be found exclusively at the MPAA, but also in another ‘group’ a lot closer to home. From 2006 to 2009, the Warez Scene had waged an on/off campaign to compromise SceneTorrents and its staff. The information revealed by them, although it wouldn’t stand up in court as-is, would certainly have been welcomed by FACT. Some of it was incredibly sensitive.

Running a criminal case is no problem for Hollywood

“At the time of the arrest I thought it was the police that were running the whole thing, but I have later learned through the police telling me that it is FACT that are running the show and it is them who have my stuff up in Scotland,” Feeling explained.

At one point FACT, a private company, actually got involved in the interview.

“The FACT officer asked if I downloaded TV shows and if so, which ones?” Feeling told us. “I replied with ‘one or two’, and named Top Gear. He then went into a rant about stopping a DVD sale.”

Feeling asked the FACT guy about the free availability of these shows on the BBC iPlayer and how they may or may not affect DVD sales. “He didn’t say much after that,” he said.

Once the interview process was completed, Feeling was required to give a DNA sample and have his picture taken. He was then released on bail and given a date in February 2010 to return.

At home he discovered items had been taken by FACT – two Xboxes, a PC, portable hard drives, a phone, and even cash. Later that evening the phone and money were returned but Feeling was required to sign documents granting access to his bank accounts.

The End of SceneTorrents

“After they had left I logged onto MSN on a friend’s PC and told djgrrr [a trusted staff member] to shut SceneTorrents all down,” Feeling explained.

As in the FileSoup case, Feeling was not ordered by the police to close SceneTorrents. This enabled staff to post up a message and leave the forums open to give the members some information and allow them time to find new homes.

However, the fact that the site had remained up, at least partially, caused issues among some site members. ScT had just completed a donation drive to get money for new hardware and some felt that having successfully pulled in money, shutting down had always been the plan. Of course, Feeling would’ve liked to have set the record straight, but due to his serious legal position, he couldn’t do that at the time.

While Feeling was getting arrested, another ScT staff member was also suffering the same fate. Discussions between the pair ended in a shared conclusion – no more torrent sites. “It just wasn’t worth it anymore,” Feeling told us.

The endless wait for justice

Then in February, just two days before Feeling was due to answer his bail, the Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) handling the case contacted him. The police were still waiting for a response from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) on how to proceed and a new bail date was set for May 2010.

In May the same thing happened again, and a new date was fixed for July. But while July duly arrived, the same could not be said about a decision from the CPS. No new date was set and several months later Feeling was wondering what on earth was going on.

“Christmas 2010 came and I called the DCI to find out what is going on and what was taking so long,” he explained. “They told me they were waiting on advice from the CPS but it was nearly resolved and we would find out more information in the New Year.”

But then in March 2011, Feeling read an article on TorrentFreak about the mess surrounding the now-failed case against FileSoup, again with FACT at the helm.

With cases failing all around them, FACT don’t have a good record when it comes to successful file-sharing site prosecutions so Feeling’s lawyers are now pressing the police to get something done about these continuing delays.

TorrentFreak has learned that admins of another UK-based torrent site are in the same position as Feeling. We have a hunch who that could be, although we could not get that confirmed at this stage. When we have the news of the outcomes in both cases, we’ll post an update.

As reported briefly yesterday, FACT continue with their drive to close down UK-based file-sharing sites with the assistance of the police, but without a successful prosecution to their name despite many arrests, one wonders for how long this can continue.

Source: SceneTorrents: The Untold Story of Raids and Arrests

Popularity: unranked [?]

Today’s press release from AFACT, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft, needs to be read very carefully. While seasoned readers of TorrentFreak and other publications which are becoming increasingly suspicious of the propaganda war down under, to the casual passer-by it might appear that AFACT had come out on top in their recent case against ISP iiNet.

“Despite being successful on many grounds in their appeal to the Full Federal Court, the film companies will seek to overturn the ruling that iiNet did not authorise the acts of infringement that it knew occurred on its internet service,” the release reads.

For those on the other side of the debate, “successful on many grounds” actually grinds down to “lost the case for a second time” as in February the Full Bench of the Federal Court dismissed the movie industry’s appeal against last year’s judgment which found that ISP iiNet did not authorize the copyright infringements of its file-sharing customers.

Not that AFACT don’t have a point, though. If the movie industry had provided iiNet with better infringement notices in the first instance and the ISP had still not acted on them, the outcome of the case may have been different, the court decided.

“Prior to the case, iiNet was provided with substantial evidence of copyright infringement by users on its network, which iiNet accepted was 100% accurate,” said AFACT this morning. Although the words “100% accurate” don’t appear to have been used by iiNet verbatim, in court the ISP did use the word “compelling” to describe AFACT notices.

Nevertheless, two of three judges in the Federal Court found that iiNet had not authorized the infringing activities of their file-sharing subscribers and it is against this majority decision that AFACT are appealing.

“We say [the judges] did not apply the legal test for authorisation correctly,” AFACT chief Neil Gane said.

Furthermore, AFACT says that the Court’s conclusion – that iiNet did not have enough knowledge of infringements taking place in order to be found as authorizing them – was also wrong.

“We are confident of our grounds for appeal and hopeful that special leave to the High Court will be granted,” Gane concludes.

However, while AFACT are like a dog with a bone in pursuing this legal action, iiNet continues to call for the movie industry to spend their money on something more creative.

“It’s time for the film industry and copyright holders to work with the industry to make their content legitimately available,” iiNet’s Chief Executive Officer Michael Malone said today in response to AFACT’s announcement.

Malone said iiNet had received positive feedback “from both consumers and the industry” following the publication of its ‘Encouraging Legitimate use of Online Content‘ report earlier this month and that all parties should consider moving forward on that basis.

If the case does indeed move to the High Court, no decision is expected until late 2011 or early 2012.

TorrentFreak

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When FileSoup administrator Geeker had his home raided in the summer of 2009, police and the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) literally trashed his place. In a previous interview Geeker vividly recalled the events.

“I got back home just before 8pm to find my belongings had been turned upside down, the dining room was a like a whirlwind had gone through..[]..they’d turfed out all the drawers of the desk, chucked back what was of no interest to them, left a pile of paperwork scattered across my desk and table with wires everywhere, talk about a nightmare!”

The police officers and ‘agents’ of the MPAA-funded FACT tagged everything with a chip in it, and bagged them as evidence. In the following weeks some items were returned, including a mobile phone, sat nav and video camera, but most of the hardware was kept under lock and key.

As Geeker and fellow FileSoup administrator Snookered were released from all charges by the Crown Prosecution Service last month, their belongings were finally returned this week. This final step in the dreadful legal proceedings should have been a day to celebrate, but the police once again trashed the party.

From the looks of it the police and FACT did not return all of the seized property, and the hardware that was given back appears to be completely trashed.

“Initially it looks like only a couple of things such as power supply units might be missing, but, as you will no doubt appreciate, there is a heck of a lot of stuff to check, it’s going to take me some time to go through it all,” Geeker explains.

“What concerns me the most about my property, is the condition it is now in… the way it was seized and bagged and how it was probably handled and transported to goodness knows where, the thought just horrifies me,” he adds.

The pictures below document the disaster. A 40 minute audio clip of the agents returning Geeker’s property is available here.

To say that the evidence was not properly stored and shipped would be a huge understatement. It looks like the computers have been taken apart, dragged through the mud, with no real attempt to reassemble them or clean things up.

According to Geeker none of his systems will boot up, which may not come as a big surprise considering the photos. The big question is why?

It almost appears as if a frustrated FACT employee trashed the hardware on purpose before it was sent back. How else could it turn into such a mess, and why take the computers apart piece by piece in the first place? What were they looking for? Warez?

Geeker is clearly not happy with how his property was handled, and he encourages everyone to help him get the story out.

“Please do me a favour everyone… tell everybody you know about this, blog about it, tweet about it, facebook and myspace or wherever else you feel it might do some good, let the whole bloody world know exactly what these evil gits have done …and will probably keep on doing if something isn’t done to stop this kind of crap from happening and people and their property being treated like this!,” he said.

Geeker has contacted his lawyer to see what the best response to this mess is.

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