During the last decade the RIAA made quite a name for itself going after the students of the United States for cash payouts, but eventually abandoned the practice in favor of sending them warnings via their university or college.

While educational establishments in many countries are prepared to forward such notices, in Norway the very notion has just been torpedoed by the Norwegian Data Inspectorate, the government body set up to manage the privacy framework of the Personal Data Act of 2000.

According to Universitetsaviser, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has been receiving enquiries from several rightsholders who believe they have tracked instances of illegal file-sharing to IP addresses held by the university. Of course, the rightsholders want further action taken, including the forwarding of infringement notices to the students in question.

However, the issue raised two important questions. Firstly, does NTNU – a university with 20,000 students and an $800 million budget – have the right to log students’ Internet traffic in order to detect illegal file-sharing or other illegal activities.

Secondly, can NTNU make use of personal information it holds in order to pass on infringement notices from rightsholders to students.

These questions were posed to Datatilsynet, the Norwegian Data Inspectorate, and the responses couldn’t have been worse for rightsholders. The privacy body responded in the negative to both questions.

The Data Inspectorate decided that students should enjoy the same levels of privacy when using computers at university as they do while accessing the Internet from home. Furthermore, Datatilsynet noted that NTNU has no legal obligation to pass on warnings from rightsholders to students.

Additionally, NTNU has been told that while in future it can keep personally identifying information in computer logs, it may only do this for up to 3 weeks and only for the purposes of network management. Rightsholders will not have access to the information.

The deadline for implementing these data privacy practices runs out tomorrow but NTNU have said that they will be in compliance by then.

Source: Hunt For Student File-Sharers Thwarted By Data Privacy Ruling

In the years that followed the BitTorrent site made history as it grew to become one of the most recognized brands on the Internet.

At a time where cyberlockers are quickly catching up with BitTorrent as the preferred way to share files online, today the founders of The Pirate Bay launch a brand new file-sharing venture called Bayfiles. One of the main reasons for this move is to provide users with a more reliable option for sharing and storing files.

“BitTorrent is increasingly throttled or even filtered by ISPs, HTTP usually is not,” Bayfiles co-founder Fredrik Neij tells TorrentFreak.

“Storage and transfers on Bayfiles also preserve users’ privacy. And another advantage is that users can be sure that content stays up, which is important for personal backups. It also guarantees that other personal files such as your MP3 collection are always accessible, so users are able to stream it live to any device,” Fredrik says.

Bayfiles works similarly to other one-click-hosting services such as Megaupload, RapidShare and Hotfile. With just a single click, users can upload files to the Bayfiles server, and then easily share them with the online public. The site itself offers no search functionality or file directory to find content that other people have uploaded.

Bayfiles

A novelty, compared to The Pirate Bay, is that Bayfiles will respect the DMCA and accept copyright infringement notices. The terms of service clearly state that content that “violates third-party copyrights” is not permitted to be uploaded. It further states that repeat infringers will have their account disabled “regardless of proof of infringement.”

How strictly the above policy will be enforced is yet to be seen, but co-founder Fredrik Neij told TorrentFreak that their Hong Kong based company Bayfiles Limited has officially registered DMCA agents. After all the trouble they had to go through in court for The Pirate Bay, Fredrik and former Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde want to avoid running into more trouble with their new venture.

Looking forward, Neij told TorrentFreak that Bayfiles will be much more than just a simple cyberlocker. There are ideas to expand it into a more feature rich cloud hosting service comparable to the likes of Dropbox. As with The Pirate Bay, the ultimate goal is to make sharing both effortless and efficient.

As for the features, unregistered users can share files up to 250MB, regular members have a limit of 500MB and premium members can upload files as large as 5GB with unlimited storage. The premium accounts do come at a price, 5 euros per month or 45 euros for a full year. Unlike other cyberlockers, Bayfiles does not offer a reward program where uploaders of popular content can be paid for their services.

In the past The Pirate Bay founders have launched many side-projects, with varying success. None of these projects ever rivalled the popularity of The Pirate Bay, but if one site can outgrow the famous BitTorrent site in terms of users, it certainly is Bayfiles.

The popularity of cyberlockers has increased exponentially in recent years. Just a few days ago we reported that 8 of the 10 largest English language file-sharing sites are related to cyberlockers, each with hundreds of millions of pageviews a month. It is not unthinkable that Bayfiles will join this list in the future.

In terms of copyright law, Bayfiles is a perfectly legal operation as long as the site doesn’t encourage or promote copyright infringement. Previously a U.S. federal court ruled that RapidShare, a competing file-hosting service, is not liable for any copyright infringements its users may commit.

That said, we doubt whether Hollywood will be happy with this new venture from a team of people who’ve been their arch rivals for more than half a decade. Exciting times ahead.

Source: Bayfiles: The Pirate Bay Founders Launch File-Hosting Site

“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

In reality the MPAA’s steps against Usenet indexing site Newzbin had begun much earlier, first with prolonged action through the civil legal system and then a reassessment once it had become apparent that the site, now called Newzbin2, had been resurrected against all odds.

Earlier this month it was revealed that Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt had asked communications watchdog Ofcom to look at whether website blocking in general, as allowed in theory by last year’s passing of the Digital Economy Act, could actually work.

Ofcom is expected to report back during the spring, but in the meantime The Guardian is reporting today that the entertainment industries are revving up their blocking preparations in advance of a favorable outcome.

Rightsholders from the music and movie industries are said to have identified 100 websites which they would like blocked, including The Pirate Bay and file-hosting or so-called ‘cyberlocker’ sites. Perhaps predictably Newzbin2 is also on the list along with the lesser-known Movieberry and Free Movies Online 4 You.

Acceptance of a voluntary code under discussion would mean that ISPs would receive evidence of unauthorized file-sharing from rightsholders and then take action to block the sites in question.

A source at government meetings told The Guardian that site-blocking is preferable to sending out infringement notices to subscribers since that process is likely to be laborious and expensive.

“We’re more interested in site blocking. We don’t want to target end users, [the mass notification system] is long winded – we want something now,” said the source.

So which of these 100 proposed sites will we be familiar with? While there will be some surprises, it seems likely that those that have appeared on the recent “most notorious pirate markets” will be at the forefront.

Undoubtedly some of the Russian AllofMP3 replacement pay-to-download portals will be high on the list as these have long been a thorn in the music industry’s side. On the BitTorrent indexing front we already know about The Pirate Bay and it’s likely they will be joined isoHunt, BTjunkie, Kickasstorrents and Torrentz.

Sites with trackers such as Demonoid, RUTracker and Zamunda will also make an appearance. However, getting authorization to block pure trackers such as OpenBitTorrent and PublicBT may prove a step too far, since these sites have no search engines, no readable filenames and no torrents.

Nevertheless, even Ofcom says that site blocking is feasible, it’s unlikely any steps taken by ISPs will stop the really determined from accessing illicit music and movies. But crucially it may stop the casual downloader in his tracks – which is admittedly a sizeable proportion of file-sharers – so this may prove enough for the entertainment industries. For now at least.

TorrentFreak

However, once the detail of the ruling had been absorbed it became apparent that had the movie and TV industries done more to improve the quality of their infringement notices, the decision in the case could have tipped in their favor.

Neither iiNet nor the studios want their opponent’s choice of system to be imposed on them – their prolonged legal battle showed that – but it’s fairly clear that at some point a compromise of sorts will have to be reached. Today, iiNet was the first to produce a report containing what it says are the steps forward.

Titled ‘Encouraging Legitimate use of Online Content’ the report begins with the ISP’s earlier stance that in order to tackle piracy the studios have got to meet demand. Having created a product and generated desire in the market place, the report argues, the studios then limit supply with their ‘windowing’ strategy, causing frustration in the market. The message is clear – once the product is available, get it out there to the customers.

The report goes on to note that despite making the product available in a timely and convenient fashion, some people will continue to pirate media. iiNet proposes a system to deal with these individuals to be overlooked by an independent body.

“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,” said iiNet chief Michael Malone, as quoted by Delimiter.

While offering subscribers a level of protection and outright rejecting disconnecting them from the Internet, iiNet proposes that infringers are punished within a drivers’ licence-style penalty points system.

“As with speeding fines, a low level infringement might attract a limited penalty, but then can ramp up to more serious penalties, depending on the level of infringement. The seriousness of the penalty is determined by a margin over a regulated limit,” says the report.

Continuing with the traffic/infringement analogy, iiNet says that offenses could attract “demerit points and/or fines”, the former set to expire after a set time and for single infringers, back to a clean slate.

The report suggests that infringements could be classified as ‘minor’ for a single instance, ‘major’ for multiple instances on different files, ‘serious’ for those on a ‘commercial level’ and all with their own level of penalties. But of course, proposals like this can be easily distorted by the entertainment industries.

For example, if a subscriber seeds a single torrent containing an album with multiple tracks on and off over the course of a month, is this ‘major’, i.e multiple instances on different files? If a subscriber seeds a single track in a swarm of 1,000 peers, is this ‘commercial level’ infringement? These all-important details and the disagreements they generate are what lead to prolonged legal battles.

Furthermore, iiNet suggests the establishment of a “scale of fines” could be linked to “the economic loss represented” which, in the light of some of the ridiculous and sometimes strangely mysterious reports coming out of the industry lately, is likely to make subscribers shudder with fear.

Fines could also be supported by demerit points imposed against the subscriber’s account and “when a defined limit is reached, other sanctions might be deemed appropriate.”

“These could involve charges being laid for treatment by the courts or possibly shaping of peer to peer traffic,” iiNet suggests.

To overcome the problem of subscribers being punished for the actions of others within a household, iiNet implies that the bill payer – as with individuals whose cars have been identified by cameras as committing speeding offences where they weren’t the driver – could have the option of accepting a fine or identifying the infringer so that they may be punished instead.

It will be very interesting to see what counter proposals are made by AFACT who are yet to comment on this report.

The full iiNet proposal can be downloaded here.

TorrentFreak

“While I disagree with the primary judge’s reasoning in significant respects, I am nevertheless of the opinion that his Honour’s decision to dismiss the proceeding was correct,” the ruling from Justice Emmett read. “In my opinion the appeal should be dismissed.”

While the decision was a cause for celebration in some quarters, closer analysis of the ruling left significant room for caution, in that it raised the possibility that under certain future circumstances ISPs could be held liable for infringements carried out by their users. In very basic terms, if the movie industry had provided iiNet with better infringement notices and the ISP had still not acted on them, the outcome of the case may have been different.

The ruling therefore provides guidance on how the movie, music and other copyright-related industries should proceed in future in order to more forcefully back ISPs into a corner on subscriber infringements. However, Australia’s Internet Industry Association (IIA) feels that although some outline parameters have been set by the ruling, further detail is required for affected companies to effectively manage their responsibilities.

“Having closely reviewed the recent decision of the Full Federal Court, we’ve concluded it’s both necessary and appropriate to develop a code of practice to give a wider range of internet intermediaries greater certainty around their legal rights and obligations,” said IIA chief executive Peter Coroneos this morning.

“The iiNet case has provided us with welcome guidance on where responsibilities should begin and end, but falls short in defining reasonable steps intermediaries should take in responding to allegations of infringement by their users. The Code will address this gap.”

Although AFACT’s legal action was squarely aimed at iiNet, IIA’s code will be aimed not only at ISPs but other service providers including web hosts, search engines and social media services.

AFACT has insisted all along that piracy is straightforward thievery by Internet users, but iiNet and indeed IIA’s Mr Coroneos firmly believe that infringement is a result of consumers taking steps to fill a gap between supply and demand. While not condoning piracy, both believe that if the entertainment industries provide better services, change can be brought about.

“Market failure remains a core contributor to the infringement problem,” Coroneous said. “If users have access to more and better content, when, where and in the form they choose to consume it, and at a realistic price, we’re quite confident the motivation for infringement will decline.”

In addition to the development of the Code of Practice, the IIA will renew its efforts to have the so-called ‘Safe Harbor’ provisions in the Copyright Act extended to cover not only ISPs, but other intermediaries. Coroneos said that protections similar to those available under US law do not exist under Australian legislation.

“This has left search providers, social network media, universities, auction sites, hosting and cloud services, corporate networks and others exposed to potential liability for the infringing acts of their users,” he said.

Quite how AFACT will respond to the creation of the Code of Conduct is unclear. IIA and AFACT had talks on the issue in 2007 but they came to nothing.

TorrentFreak

Tomorrow, a full bench of the Federal Court of Australia will announce their decision on whether an earlier ruling on the issue should stand or be overturned. The former would mean that ISPs and file-sharing subscribers can cautiously crack open a bottle of bubbly. The latter and opposite outcome is the one favored by the entertainment industries.

The epic legal battle dates back to 2008, when AFACT – the Hollywood-backed Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft – began legal action against ISP iiNet. AFACT claimed that the Perth-based ISP had authorized the copyright infringements of its BitTorrenting subscriber base by failing to stop them from sharing unauthorized material.

AFACT had monitored iiNet users in their allegedly illicit activities and sent corresponding infringement notices to the ISP. When iiNet failed to suspend or terminate customer accounts on the basis of these notices (which were based on untested AFACT-gathered evidence), the fight was on.

After close to a month in court during October and November 2009, with countless documents perused and a parade of witnesses heard, the Court was adjourned. For close to three months both sides had to wait for the decision of Justice Cowdroy.

In early February 2010 his ruling came, but for AFACT and the near three dozen movie and TV show companies supporting it in the case, the news was bad.

Although Justice Cowdroy agreed that the studio’s copyrights had indeed been infringed upon, he decided that iiNet did not authorize the copyright infringing activities of its subscribers and therefore could not be held responsible for their actions.

“It is impossible to conclude that iiNet has authorised copyright infringement … [iiNet] did not have relevant power to prevent infringements occurring,” Justice Cowdroy said in his judgment.

BitTorrent networks were outside the control of the ISP, Cowdroy said, adding that the ISP was covered under so-called “safe harbor” provisions.

AFACT executive director Neil Gane described the ruling as “a set back for the 50,000 Australians employed in the film industry,” and late February 2010 he announced that AFACT would appeal.

“The court found large scale copyright infringements, that iiNet knew they were
occurring, that iiNet had the contractual and technical capacity to stop them and iiNet did nothing about them,” Gane said. “In line with previous case law, this would have amounted to authorization of copyright infringement.”

The waiting since last year’s appeal seems to have gone on forever but is set to end tomorrow. Will it be victory for iiNet, ISPs and subscribers everywhere? Or will copyright holders be the ones celebrating? Tune in to find out.

TorrentFreak

Every year, the major movie studios and record labels send out tens of thousands of warnings to Internet users who are suspected of sharing their content using BitTorrent. These infringement notices are meant to inform users of their wrongdoings, and to convince the recipients to never download anything again.

The process works as follows. The copyright holders hire companies such as BayTSP and MediaSentry to track down people who share certain titles on BitTorrent and other file-sharing networks. These companies then join the swarm and request files from others. When someone shares a piece of the file with them, they log the IP-address, look up the ISP and send out an infringement notice automatically.

Most of the notices are sent out to the larger ISPs who are then asked to forward them to the customers in question, but search giant Google has also been receiving quite a few. A search on ChillingEffects – a site that collects some of the DMCA notices that are sent to Google – reveals that more than 100 of these automated warnings were sent to Google in the past several months.

Since Google also offers Wi-Fi hotspots in some cities, most of the infringers are not actually sharing material directly from Google headquarters. However, in some cases these warnings do appear to be aimed at Google employees. This is an awkward situation for a company that is trying to help out the entertainment industry, and has even revealed a censorship policy towards certain BitTorrent-related terms.

But there is more. If we believe some of the notices sent to Google, the company is at risk of losing its connection to the Internet.

“Copyright infringement also violates your ISP’s terms of service and could lead to limitation or suspension of your Internet service. You should take immediate action to prevent your Internet account from being used for illegal activities,” the movie companies write in various letters.

The above text is of course intended for average consumers, but in this case it appears to be directed at Google. Not that we (or Google) have to worry about it much. Although the copyright holders use strong language, these kind of notices are nothing more than a warning, and they never lead to legal action.

At the bottom of each notice there is generally some info about the alleged infringer, in the following format.

Infringing Work: The Green Hornet
First Found: 2 Feb 2011 16:57:21 EST (GMT -0500)
Last Found: 2 Feb 2011 16:57:21 EST (GMT -0500)
IP Address: 216.239.XXX.XXX
IP Port: 14077
Protocol: BitTorrent
Torrent InfoHash: 42708AA384CF93EC6B67E6CEFB6E27B32362F689
Containing file(s): The Green Hornet TS(iPod.Zune.PSP).torrent (442,480,008 bytes)

Of the 100 latest infringement notices received by Google for sharing copyright works, most of them are associated with IP-addresses used by Wi-Fi customers while a few point to Google’s headquarters. Even though they are posted on ChillingEffects (some redacted, some with full IPs) it is impossible to tell whether the company has forwarded them to employees, if these are traceable at all.

The movie companies, however, do have some advice for Google.

“An MPAA website, www.respectcopyrights.org, offers step-by-step instructions to ensure that your Internet account is not being used to violate the copyright laws. Also, the site can point you to an array of legal choices for enjoying movies and TV shows online. You can also learn there how theft of motion pictures and TV shows damages our economy and costs thousands of Americans their jobs,” they write.

The most recent notices received by Google were sent on behalf of Paramount Pictures and Columbia Pictures for the illicit sharing of The Fighter and The Green Hornet respectively. In total, Google has published 20+ of these warning letters in the last 30 days.

The RIAA is famous for targeting college students with DMCA takedown notices or even full lawsuits. The MPAA however, has never been active on this front.

Individual movie companies have sent thousands of infringement notices but these campaigns have never been led by the MPAA, until now.

This week the MPAA will notify all college and university presidents about this upcoming policy change, and at the same time the movie industry outfit will urge institutions to do whatever they can to stop illegal downloading on their campus networks.

In July this year, the US put into effect a new requirement for colleges and universities to stop illicit file-sharing on their networks. This legislation puts defiant schools at risk of losing federal funding if they don’t do enough to stop illicit file-sharers on their campus.

With this ammunition in hand the MPAA drafted a letter which TorrentFreak received a copy of this weekend, a few days before it will be mailed to the universities. In the letter the MPAA politely asks the colleges and universities to help the movie industry to fight the evil that piracy is.

The MPAA writes that the jobs of 2.4 million US workers are at stake, if proper countermeasures are not taken.

“For these workers and their families, online theft means declining incomes, lost jobs, reduced health and retirement benefits, and a lessened ability to provide their children with an education at institutions like yours,” MPAA’s anti-piracy head Daniel Mandil writes.

“In addition, online theft is a job-killer that also reduces the number of opportunities for graduates of your institution to make a living in the creative sectors.”

“Beyond the negative economic consequences for both the current workforce and future employment, the downloading and distribution of copyrighted works are serious offenses that carry with them the risk of substantial monetary damages and, in some cases, criminal prosecution,” Mandil adds.

Of course, between the lines the MPAA also notes that colleges and universities who fail to implement proper anti-piracy policies, may lose federal funding.

The letter further notes that the MPAA itself will get involved in sending out warning letters to higher education institutions for any ‘illegal activity’ they detect. This, in addition to the DMCA takedown notices that individual film and television studios have been sending out already.

Of course, the MPAA doesn’t only warn universities, they also offer solutions. One option that is recommended by the MPAA is to block students and employees access to ‘rogue web sites.’ This means, actively censoring BitTorrent search engines and indexes such as The Pirate Bay, Demonoid and isoHunt.

Aside from commercial censorship there are also less aggressive methods such as ‘educational seminars,’ monitoring the browsing habits of students, or blocking all P2P-traffic entirely which some of the appointed ‘role model‘ schools do.

Naturally, the additional DMCA notices and expensive countermeasures will take away a few hundred thousand dollars a year from the education budget, but it’s for a good cause. After all, if piracy continues at this rate many of the current students might not even be able to get a job when they graduate.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

In July this year, we reported on some new stats made available by the RIAA.

In less than two years the music industry group had sent out copyright infringement notices to 1.8 million Internet subscribers and a further 269,609 to colleges and universities. This kind of tracking and monitoring is a substantial task, so the RIAA along with its partners at IFPI and BPI, use companies who specialize in the work.

While BayTSP is a company many readers will be most familiar with, Denmark’s DtecNet has been increasing its profile substantially in recent years. During the AFACT v iiNet trial in Australia it became clear that much of the evidence had been collected by DtecNet and the company has worked with IRMA, the Irish Recorded Music Association, in connection with its 3 strikes agreement with ISP Eircom.

DtecNet, which is active in over two dozen countries, originally stemmed from anti-piracy lobby group Antipiratgruppen (APG), who along with IFPI represent the music and movie industry in Denmark. DtecNet was owned by the Johan Schlüter Law Firm, which itself has close ties to APG and IFPI.

However, according to a report from Denmark, the company has now been sold to US-based company, MarkMonitor.

With its headquarters in San Francisco and offices in London, Boise, Washington, D.C., and New York, MarkMonitor describes itself as “the global leader in enterprise brand protection” and claim that “more than half the Fortune 100 depend on MarkMonitor to help safeguard their brands online.”

MarkMonitor has listed DtecNet as one of its partners for some time now and together they have offered a one-stop-shop solution to tackle piracy online in both its physical and digital form. While DtecNet monitored P2P networks, blogs, Usenet and streaming services, MarkMonitor dealt with listings for counterfeit products on sites such as eBay and various social networking platforms.

Together they collected evidence of alleged infringements and sent DMCA takedown notices, requested items or posts to be delisted and issued cease and desist notices. MarkMonitor also worked to steer Internet users away from sites offering counterfeit material and towards those offering official products.

The sale will undoubtedly net Thomas Sehested, co-founder and CEO of DtecNet, a sizeable amount, although at this stage the amount MarkMonitor paid for his company is not available. Indeed, there is currently no mention of the deal anywhere on either company’s website.

TorrentFreak contacted both Thomas Sehested and Te Smith, Vice President, Communications at MarkMonitor for comment. Neither were prepared to confirm or deny the news.

Article from: TorrentFreak.