Steve Knightley is one half of ‘Show of Hands’, an award-winning acoustic and folk duo from the UK. Steve says he is thankful to the people that pirate the band’s music and go out of their way to promote the band. In fact, he says the band utterly depends on them.
The music industry’s position is clear, every download is a lost sale and there is no such animal as ‘piracy is promotion’. However, some people feel that there are benefits associated with piracy, as free musical samples can go out today with very little fuss, for the no-risk perusal of potential future audiences.
My otherwise law-abiding parents will quietly take the time to have a listen to something on a CDR that might interest them, but overwhelmingly they buy media, go to live musical performances, the opera, and generally pay their way. They are not on their own. As unbelievable as this may sound to the music industry, everyone is not a habitual pirate and people do use piracy for good, something that band ‘Show of Hands’ has noticed.
Born in 1954, Steve Knightley is a musician singer-songwriter and one half of BBC award-winning acoustic roots duo, ‘Show of Hands‘. Just like every other band, from the smallest to the biggest, they aren’t immune to piracy.
“After any show we can always be found chatting to our audience, signing stuff and generally hanging out by the CD table. I always make a point of asking people how they first heard about us,” says Steve. “The three most common answers are, they’ve been ‘dragged’ along by friends, they heard us on the radio - or someone gave them a copy of one of our CDs. This last one is usually accompanied by a look of collective guilt and embarrassment.”
At this point Steve would call the police - if the IFPI had their way. But no, Steve sees these people in a very different light and is actually grateful that pirates didn’t chose someone else’s music to ’steal’:
“Let’s consider this more closely - a person who values our music has kindly made a copy of a CD and gone out of their way to spread the word about us. That recipient has then bought both a ticket to see us and a CD on the night.” So it’s obvious that being a pirate doesn’t exclude people from being a fan, they just aren’t paying at the point of piracy - but they will, when the circumstances are right.
Steve also believes that ’sharing’ really is ‘caring’, which is refreshing in these ’sue-em-all’ days: “You may call this process ‘piracy’ if you wish - for me it is an act of generosity and it both increases our audience size and record sales. And as I always say on the night - if you’re going to do it anyway you may as well feel good about it!”
Steve also says the band rarely objects if someone wants to film their performances as it’s yet another way of using technology to reach out to their audience.
“I believe the official term is ‘viral marketing’,” says Steve, “and we depend utterly upon it.”
“Don’t fight it - embrace it.”
This is an article from: TorrentFreak
Acoustic Band ‘Utterly Depends’ on Piracy
26.Aug.08 
TorrentFreak 
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TV shows are by far the most wanted files via BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s fast becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
There’s only one week to go before the new TV season starts, but here is one of the latest summer charts. Stargate Atlantis is leading the chart this week.
The data is collected by TorrentFreak from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only.
At the end of the year we will publish a list of most downloaded TV-shows for the entire year, like we did last December.
TV-shows such as “Lost” and “Heroes” can get up to 10 million downloads per episode, in only a week.
Top Downloads August 17 - August 24
This is an article from: TorrentFreak
10 Most Pirated TV-Shows on BitTorrent (wk34)
26.Aug.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
Over the last year, UK residents accused of sharing games like Dream Pinball have been threatened by lawyers Davenport Lyons. Stuck in a trap of not having enough money to defend themselves, many choose to pay compensation demands - guilty or not - fearful of a much bigger punishment if things go bad. Now a UK IP lawyer says he will defend as many people as he can - for free.
Last week, thousands of news outlets reported that a single mother, Isabella Barwinska from London, had been found guilty of uploading the game Dream Pinball. She collected a staggering £16,000 bill for her trouble. However, following a TorrentFreak report last week where we revealed that far from being a ‘landmark ruling’, Miss Barwinska actually mounted no defense, people are realizing that all may not be as it seems. Maybe it’s possible to fight back - and win. The timing couldn’t be better
According to reports, any minute now lawyers Davenport Lyons will send out up to 25,000 further ‘pay up or get sued’ letters, demanding around £300 in compensation on the back of their so-called ‘landmark ruling’. Unfortunately, those accused of infringement have had limited choices up to now. Pay around £200-£250 for a few minutes with a lawyer and maybe get him to send a solitary letter, or go it alone, maybe with limited help from the UK’s Citizens Advice service. Either way, it’s pretty much guaranteed to cost more than £300, in time and/or money.
Until now.
Michael Coyle is a Solicitor Advocate, which means he is entitled to represent clients in the High Court and has frequently done so. He is also a Director at his company Lawdit Solicitors and leads the company’s Commercial and Intellectual Property legal section. He’s says he’d like to help those file-sharers wrongly accused, so we caught up with him to find out more.
TF: Please introduce yourself Michael, and tell us about your company. What do you specialize in?
MC: Lawdit Solicitors was formed on 3 September 2001 by me, Michael Coyle. Almost seven years later we are a busy commercial law firm with close connections in Marbella and Rome. Lawdit’s team consists of five Solicitors and support staff. While Lawdit is a commercial law firm a large part of its client base is concerned with intellectual property and copyright of course.
TF: What inspired you to start the firm?
MC: I wanted a law firm which was fair and would not price anyone out of securing at the very least a right of response when either the client’s intellectual property has been infringed or they are defending a claim for intellectual property infringement.
TF: Please tell us a little about Lawdit’s track record, relevant to this matter.
MC: Over the years I have advised clients in many aspects of copyright infringement from both perspectives, i.e the rights holder and the copier. In relation to P2P there is a paucity of legal case law largely due to lack of funds and the lack of defences. We have advised a retired gentleman and a 14 year old child, both threatened with lawsuits and both issues seem to have gone away.
TF: Why do you think they have gone away?
MC: It may be because the rights holder does not wish to take the case further as they now know legal representation is in place or they do not want the publicity. We will never know. Litigation can often be described as a game of poker. You have to always show a willingness to commence a legal action even if this is not your intention. At the same time you always need to show you will defend. At the time its usual for a ‘without prejudice’ exchange of correspondence to be maintained.
TF: Let us know what first got you interested in these Davenport Lyons cases.
MC: I have some clients who watch with interest all these developments and either they let me know or we are generally very good at keeping in touch with copyright laws
TF: What is your opinion of the ’settle up now or we sue’ letters?
MC: It can make sense to ‘settle up now’ if you have no defence to the claim and are almost certainly going to lose. It’s back to the poker game analogy. Will they sue? etc. It seems they will commence legal action as the recent case shows, however I would need to know more about each case. If there is no defence and you are sure that a claim will follow then perhaps a penalty is worth paying. If they have no defence and it is a case of ‘its not me guv’ then perhaps not. If you have a valid defence then you should fight it.
TF: What is your opinion on how these ‘default judgment’ cases have been selected and prosecuted and the blanket media coverage of a ‘landmark case’ ?
MC: The individual would have ample opportunity to deal with numerous letters from the Lawyers. Equally once a claim has been issued the defendant has over a month in many instances to provide a defence. So the individual really ought to deal with it as the ostrich approach is not helpful. Lawyers will generally want to shout about their success and I am no different. A default Judgement is still a win although a fairly one sided win!
TF: So what exactly are you and Lawdit offering?
MC: I think it’s important that individuals do have a voice in this matter. There will be some defendants who are infringing copyright with their use of the P2P software. But at the same time there will be others who may not be. I am willing to offer Lawdit Solicitors services as the law firm to represent these individuals. I will do so for free. Obviously we are a small firm and there may be limitations to this offer. That is 5 offers for help will not be a problem. 5000 may pose me a problem, but yes, we’re willing to be on the end of an email for sure.
TF: How would you like people to contact you, bearing in mind that at the moment there are a few hundred people receiving demands and this may increase to tens of thousands shortly, or so they say…..
MC: Email is best. I am often in court but the Blackberry is on and happy to help as much as I can email is michael.coyle[at]lawdit.co.uk.
TF: Thank you for your time.
Readers contacting Michael are strongly advised to be very clear and concise in their initial correspondence. A lot of people will be interested in this offer and Michael and his team are a limited resource. Make their job as easy as you possibly can, so they can help more effectively.
This is an article from: TorrentFreak
Alleged UK Pirates Offered Free Legal Representation
25.Aug.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
The top 10 most downloaded DVDrips on BitTorrent, “Deception” tops the chart this week.
We do not link to actual torrent files because linking to files that link to files that may be copyrighted is something that might get us in trouble.
The data is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.
RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.
As of August 25, 2008…
This is an article from: TorrentFreak
Most Downloaded DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk34)
25.Aug.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
P4P is touted as the new and improved P2P. The technology has the potential to lower bandwidth costs for ISPs and speed up downloads for P4P enabled filesharing clients. There is a dark site to this new technology though. The strong anti-piracy connections are fuel for conspiracy theorists, and Net Neutrality might be at stake.
Earlier this week, researchers from Yale University and The University of Washington presented the latest findings from their P4P research. P4P is a new technology that could make any filesharing application (including BitTorrent) cheaper for ISPs, as it tries to connect to local peers as much as possible. Local traffic is cheaper for ISPs and reduces the load on the network. In addition, P4P enabled filesharing clients will download files faster than regular clients.
In theory this is a great idea. However, P4P requires collaboration between the developers of filesharing clients and ISPs, which might be a problem. Indeed, most P2P companies TorrentFreak talked to are not that excited about the initiative, but they wont say that out loud, and play along for the time being.
There might even be a darker side to the project, as the P4P working group includes some prominent members of the entertainment industry and well known anti-piracy lobbyists. Besides that, we argue that it is likely that the technology might slow down transfers of people who are on ISPs that don’t end up supporting the technology, raising serious Net Neutrality issues.
Let’s start off by looking at the mission statement of the P4P working group, which was founded last year. One of the key objectives of the group, quoted from their official mission statement (pdf) is as follows (emphasis added).
[to] Determine, validate, and encourage the adoption of methods for ISPs and P2P software distributors to work together to enable and support consumer service improvements as P2P adoption and resultant traffic evolves while protecting the intellectual property (IP) of participating entities
It might of course be that the P4P group included this objective to cover their asses. However, we have our doubts. For now, the technical specs give no reason to believe that the new technology will support piracy filters or other anti-piracy measures. But, when you consider that the MPAA, NBC Universal and several other representatives from the entertainment industry are members of the working group, this might very well be suggested in the next phase of the project.
One might wonder, why is the MPAA involved in all this? Obviously their agenda is to stop copyright infringement, so we have no reason to believe that they will try to steer P4P in this direction as well. This would not be a big surprise really. The P4P working group was founded by The Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA), a collaboration of the entertainment industry, ISPs and P2P companies. The purpose of the DCIA is clear, as we can read on their website (emphasis added):
Our number one priority clearly is the elimination of copyright infringement and, because DCIA advocates the commercial development of distributed computing (as opposed for example to trying to stop it), our key strategy centers on proliferating legitimate commercial services to displace unauthorized media file sharing currently being conducted by consumers on a massive scale.
This shows the P4P working group from a whole other perspective doesn’t it? We have no doubt that the researchers involved in this have the best of intentions, and that they really want to develop a new technology that benefits P2P users and ISPs. We also believe, however, that the MPAA and other rights holders who are part of the project, will push their agenda forward sooner of later.
The DCIA collaboration is an initiative from Hollywood’s big shots and several of the larger technology corporations. Back in 2002, both sides got together and decided that it would be a good idea to start a working group to keep an eye on future technological developments. Below, we quote a paragraph from one of the original letters (pdf) discussing the matter, signed by the CEOs of the MPAA, Walt Disney, Sony Pictures, AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer, Viacom and News America (emphasis added).
We thus propose the establishment of a new high level working group, independent or as part of an existing process, to find technical measures that limit unauthorized peer-to-peer trafficking in movies, music and other entertainment content.
And so the DCIA was born, which later started the P4P workgroup. We will leave it up to the readers to decide whether this is a serious threat or not, we will find out sooner or later anyway.
There is one other “dark” aspect of P4P we want to mention though, something that hasn’t been reported elsewhere, even though it can have some very negative consequences for P2P users.
By looking at the latest P4P research report, we come to the conclusion that P4P might slow down the downloads of people who use non-P4P clients, or those who are on an ISP that doesn’t support P4P. This is because P4P users will be more likely to share with local peers, while regular P2P users share with everyone (note that both can be in the same swarm). This goes against Net Neutrality principles, although this depends on how one defines Net Neutrality.
Since P4P prioritizes local traffic, P4P users will share less with users who do not use the technology. This will affect both the upload and the download side, but the data in the report seems to suggest that the give and take ratio is worse when P4P is enabled, so they take more from other ISPs (relatively) than they give back (mild leeching). This is most likely facilitated by the fact that upload speeds tend to be slower than download speeds.
Let’s conclude by saying that the researchers from Yale University and The University of Washington came up with a promising technology that could potentially speed up P2P downloads, at least for some users. Getting ISPs and filesharing developers to embrace this new technology will not be easy though. ISPs will sure be motivated, as it will save them money. Hoever, we’re not so sure that BitTorrent client developers (and others) will adopt it so easily, since it might degrade performance on non P4P ISPs.
The largest threat (as usual) might come from the anti-piracy lobby, as they will probably push for content filters or other anti-piracy measures. They haven’t done this so far, but to us this seems to be inevitable.
This is an article from: TorrentFreak
Uncovering The Dark Side of P4P
24.Aug.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
TinySong is an easy to use website where users can search for music and share tracks with friends via a direct link. The website is linked to Grooveshark, a P2P powered music service, that allows users to manage and store their entire music library “in the cloud”.
When you visit the TinySong website, all you will see is a large search box. When you enter a search term the site performs a search on one of the largest online music libraries, and returns direct links to playable versions of the tracks that match your search.
There is no need to register, everyone can search for, and play as many tracks as they like. There is even a queue feature in place for those who want to play more than one song. Registration is free, and offers several benefits, as it enables users to create playlists, add favorites, download tracks, and includes all of the other features Grooveshark offers. This is when it gets even more interesting.
TinySong is linked to Grooveshark, which is best defined as an online version of iTunes, including a store where you can buy songs and a social network where you can connect with other users. Grooveshark allows users to import their music library, which they can then access from any computer with an Internet connection. Users also have unlimited access to streaming music they don’t have in their own library - for free.
Perhaps one of the more interesting features of Grooveshark, for TorrentFreak at least, is that it is a P2P based service. Users who upload their local music library to the site will make it available to all other users. Users are rewarded for every song they share and receive “song credits”, which they can use to buy new tracks. The end result is one of the largest P2P music libraries around with millions of tracks in the collection.
There is also a commercial aspect to the site of course, as Grooveshark offers paid downloads. The downloads are available in different formats, high quality and DRM-free. Individual songs cost 99cents, and can be downloaded to a local computer once purchased. “FLAC, OGG, MP3, anything that’s available online will eventually be in our catalog,” Josh said. “We’re currently the only music company, or media company for that matter, that could easily one day offer a selection of over 50 million files.”
Grooveshark has potential, as it’s basically iTunes “in the cloud”, powered by P2P and with a social network on top of that (yes, a lot of buzzwords). All you need is an Internet connection, and you’re hooked up to one of the largest music libraries in the world. Josh told us that there are no deals with any of the major record labels yet, but they are working on it. They do pay royalties though.
“Due to the fact that all content which enters Grooveshark is monetized and made legal to purchase, we will in actuality be able to collect most every song in the world in due time,” Josh told us. “Many members like this, as they don’t need to store music locally, and can listen to all of the live, rare, unreleased, lossless and so forth content which there was no access to before.”
In sum I would say that TinySong is one of the easiest ways to share single tracks with your friends. The Grooveshark service is promising as well, and a great way to access your music library (and more) if you’re not at home. The paid downloads are still too expensive though, even though they offer high quality and DRM-free songs. Getting the labels behind it will be a challenging endeavor though, as we already spotted some prerelease tracks, that made their way from BitTorrent to Grooveshark.
TinySong Search
This is an article from: TorrentFreak
Find and Share Music with TinySong
23.Aug.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
Noel Gallagher from the 50 million-selling band Oasis has been chatting about piracy on the UK’s Radio 1. He jokes about mainstream journalists asking him about non-existent leaks from the new album and encourages everyone to download the music of rival bands. Overall, he’s pragmatic and upbeat, looking forward to filling his swimming pool with mineral water.
Sooner or later, this type of article will cease to be news. In fact, so many artists are speaking out about file-sharing in a positive or at least pragmatic way that by this time next year, we’ll probably be writing about artists who don’t have something to good to say, such is the shift in attitudes towards P2P.
Big names like Nine Inch Nails, 50 Cent, Joss Stone, Duffy and Travis have all had positive things to say recently.
But before supporting file-sharing becomes mainstream and we don’t have to report it anymore, Noel Gallagher from the 50 million album-selling band Oasis has been chatting with Zane Lowe from the UK’s Radio 1 about many things, including (of course) file-sharing.
Whilst discussing the forthcoming Oasis album, Gallagher notes that a reporter from a UK national newspaper called him, explaining that the tracks had already been leaked onto the Internet:
“I had a guy from a national newspaper track me down and say ‘Have you got any comment to make? All of your new album has come up on the Internet!’ and I was going, ‘It’s impossible, it’s ludicrous’, because only four or five people had copies. So I said ‘Read out the song titles that are up on the Internet’ and he read out the track-listing from the last album! So I was like, ‘That’s on the Internet is it? It’s also in HMV - in the ‘O’ section…..you idiot.”
So, how would Noel have felt if the tracks from the new album had really leaked onto the Internet? Would he get angry?
“No, it’s one of those things,” he told Zane. “If it’s out there and you can get it, you know, go ahead. I’m certainly not going to get into Lars Ulrich mode about this.”
Unlike singer Duffy, who has been enjoying downloading for some time now, Noel doesn’t partake himself: “It’s well documented, I don’t even have a computer and I don’t get involved in that type of gear,” he told the Radio 1 host.
But what does Noel think of other people sharing music via P2P?
“If people are willing to have faceless CDs like that in their collection, good for them. It would be absolutely ludicrous for a rock-star to demand that people pay money for albums because the kids haven’t got that much money to pay for an album, so if they can find it for free, go ahead! But don’t do it on Oasis records though - because that’s against the law.”
Not missing a chance to have a little rivalry with other UK bands, he encourages file-sharers to look at some other bands instead: “Pinch as many Kaiser Chiefs as you like - and the Pigeon Detectives - but don’t nick any Oasis!”
The new album, Dig Out Your Soul, is out on October 6th 2008. Noel would like everyone to buy it since he says he is “down to my last £4 million”. If that wasn’t bad enough, he says he needs to “keep the Evian water topped up in my swimming pool.”
Thanks to Skid
This is an article from: TorrentFreak
Noel Gallagher of Oasis Speaks Out on Piracy
22.Aug.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
Yesterday, the FCC ruled that Comcast’s network management practices that specifically targeted BitTorrent users, were unfair. The ruling is a small victory for Net Neutrality, but it wont stop ISPs from going after the heavy bandwidth users, not at all.
Comcast was ordered to stop slowing down BitTorrent users before the end of the year. In addition, the company has to disclose all “network managing” practices.
The FCC’s final decision came exactly a year after we first reported on the issue. Initially, Comcast flatout denied that they were slowing down BitTorrent users, but after AP confirmed our reports, mainstream media picked it up and the FCC got involved. FCC argues that Comcast’s actions are unfair because they specifically target BitTorrent, not any other protocols.
Good news right? So BitTorrent users will soon be able to download at blazing speeds again? Well, not really. A neutral net wont stop ISPs from slowing down their customers. Now they simply have to slow down everyone - and that’s exactly what their plan is. Comcast already said that they will move on, and throttle bandwidth hogs at peak times when needed. On top of that, they are enforcing a monthly bandwidth limit, not hesitating to disconnect people who use more than they should.
Comcast is taking these measures under the “reasonable network management” flag. However, what is reasonable now (if it is), might not be one or two years from now. The problem is that the ISPs are the ones who decide what the limits should be, meaning they can pretty much do whatever they want.
Several ISPs have already started to experiment with new tools to prevent customers from using too much bandwidth. Comcast will slow down all heavy bandwidth users, and Time Warner Cable is testing metered plans, where users will pay for the bandwidth they transfer. Worrying developments, to say the least.
Some might not see a problem with metered plans. We pay for water and gasoline in pretty much the same way. This is indeed true, but there’s also a danger in metering the Internet. It will restrict innovation (heavy bandwidth apps), and the use of high bandwidth video streaming may become something for the elite.
One thing is clear, BitTorrent users will be the main targets of these new “business models”. It was therefore surprising to see comments from Eric Klinker, Chief Technology Officer of BitTorrent, on these initiatives. “I think what Comcast and Time Warner Cable are doing is a great first step,” Klinker told Cnet. “It gets ISPs out of the business of deciding which applications are important and which aren’t. But there are enhancements to the peer-to-peer protocol, in particular, that can make it easier on all ISPs.”
Net neutrality is not the Holy Grail though - a neutral net is useless if it’s slower than a biased one. Klinker agreed on this, and told us that he doesn’t think that these new business models, or network management practices, are a good long term strategy. “This is a step in the right direction because ISPs are indeed making their networks more “neutral” without new legislation requiring them to do so,” he told TorrentFreak. “But make no mistake, bandwidth caps and metered plans are bad for the Internet and could stunt the adoption and growth of all broadband services.”
Network expert Robb Topolski, who was the first to document Comcast’s unfair network management practices, thinks that ISPs might experiment with new network management tools, but that these wont stick. When we asked him whether he thinks the FCC ruling will lead to more bandwidth caps and metered plans, he said: “If it does, then something has gone wrong with competition. Customers clearly don’t want metered plans and bandwidth caps. There might be some ISPs that experiment with these, but I don’t see it happening.”
Let’s hope Robb is right. Of course, we applaud the FCC ruling, but we have a strange feeling that ISPs will continue to fight their customers for a while. They should, of course, move on and invest in the future. BitTorrent is here to stay, files will get larger, and more bandwidth intensive services will surface, really.
This is an article from: TorrentFreak
Comcast vs. BitTorrent, What’s Next?
21.Aug.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
This week, alleged game pirates in the UK have been condemned to the ruination of huge fines and misery. Well, not quite. See, if defendants don’t turn up in court, it’s easy to get a default judgment and huge damages because no-one contests the evidence. So what’s the truth and what evidence do the lawyers really have?
First things first. Remember the single mother-of-two in the news this week who picked up a £16,000 fine for sharing Dream Pinball 3D? You must’ve heard about it - it’s touted as a ‘landmark decision’ in dozens of redundant news articles, which indicated the world caving in on file-sharers in the UK and signaling that everyone contacted by lawyers Davenport Lyons (working for the games industry against alleged sharers) over the last year or so were doomed to a huge fine.
Let’s get something clear. The defendant, Isabella Barwinska, didn’t turn up in court - that’s according to Simon Perry over at Digital Lifestyles: “The text [in the article] was from the official comment that I received from Davenport’s PR company Bell Pottinger,” he told us. And here it is:
The initial default judgment was made against her was at the London County Court on 27 May. Subsequently the Patents County Court in London handed down damages of £6,086.56 plus costs and disbursements of £10,000.
For those still unconvinced, this Channel4 news report states clearly that Miss Isabella Barwinska, the recipient of this huge penalty, did not defend herself, she did not respond to letters and her side of the story has never been heard. Thankfully, not every news outlet fell for the ‘landmark victory’ line.
Just in case this still isn’t clear (please forgive me for this reiteration but it’s vital): It was impossible for her to win her case so this defeat (default judgment) means little for the other people facing these accusations who actually have a defense.
Davenport Lyons picked on six individuals who didn’t mount a defense, and so far, they have default judgments from four of them at least. Those that responded and denied the claims, just as we previously reported, have been left alone.
It seems likely that yesterday’s announcement that Davenport Lyons will now go after 25,000 other alleged sharers was perfectly and deliberately timed to ride on the momentum from the news of this ‘landmark’ win, which in reality, was the legal equivalent of shooting a dead fish in a barrel.
Evidence and Damages
So what do Davenport have in their evidence arsenal? Well, not enough to take on someone who is prepared to defend themselves, or so it seems. Also, how do they calculate these crazy damages? Well, they claim damages of whatever they like and with no-one there to challenge them, its simple to get stupid amounts awarded. TorrentFreak has received information which lay everything bare and of course, we share it with our readers.
Let’s start with what Davenport Lyons don’t know, because their highly controversial (1, 2, 3, 4) anti-piracy tracking company Logistep can’t tell them:
Davenport doesn’t know if the defendant copied the work to his hard drive or allowed someone else to do it for him. They have no idea (and admit it) how many times the game was uploaded to 3rd parties on P2P networks, or even if it was at all.
They admit to not knowing how long the defendant made the work available and actually admit that it may have been only made available for a second, which is interesting since we have seen documents where Davenport claim that Logistep download a full copy of each game in every case. At the time, we thought that to be completely unfeasible and it now seems that was indeed the case. This adds weight to the theory that Logistep didn’t even verify that the file offered for download was the actual file in question.
Based on information provided by Logistep, they say they can prove one second of ‘making available’. However, they multiply this out to a whole day of ‘making available’ for the purposes of damages calculation, while insisting on the one download = one lost sale argument. Interestingly, defendants don’t have to be seeders to get logged since Davenport state that by default, every downloader is also an uploader, a mistake we have reported on before.
Davenport’s damages formula
The calculation for damages is entirely based on the data provided Logistep after they recorded users sharing Dream Pinball 3D during the monitoring period between 24th September 2006 and 6th November 2006, a period of 43 days.
The calculation for damages is made as follows:
(A) Estimated number of days file was uploaded by the Defendant x (B) Estimated number of downloaders Defendant made game available to per day x (C) Profit lost per download = total damages
It is assumed by Davenport that one download equals one lost sale.
In the case of Dream Pinball 3D, Logistep monitored for a total of 42 days (1 day of the 43 was discounted on database issues), gathering around 22,500 IP addresses. Logistep logged all the countries of people in the swarm and added up all the IP addresses over the monitoring period. It then singled out the IP addresses located in the UK (around 800), but when Davenport went to court to force the ISPs to hand over the details of the alleged sharers, they discovered that due to dynamic IP addresses, less than half were ‘unique’ users. This means that all the headlines of Davenport nailing 800 so-called pinball pirates were actually inflated by 100%.
Interestingly, it’s also been revealed that some ISPs couldn’t supply the information Davenport asked for, so these cases were dropped.
As only around 50% of the IP addresses were unique, for the purpose of damages calculation the number of IP addresses collected during the monitoring period was cut in half. This amount is then divided by the number of days monitored (42) to get the number of daily downloaders. It is claimed that the profit lost on each game is 10 Euros.
So the formula for calculating damages is: Estimated total days file was uploaded by the defendant (1 day) multiplied by the average number of downloaders defendant (could have) made work available to per day, multiplied by the profit it claims to have lost on each download (10 euros). Note that the first two variables are estimates, not backed by any evidence.
The final claim is for the damages, plus interest, plus costs, which can come to around £16,000 ($32,000) if you don’t bother to defend yourself, as Miss Barwinska has discovered.
For all the other recipients of these letters, little has changed as a result of this default judgment. None of the evidence has even been contested in court, which considering its nature is probably a good thing - for Davenport at least.
Andrew Murray, senior lecturer in Law at the London School of Economics earlier referred to Davenport’s tactics as “bullying“. Now it seems that the people Davenport picked on for these cases never tried to defend themselves, the word “bully” seems more appropriate than ever.
This is an article from: TorrentFreak
UK Game Piracy: Propaganda, Evidence and Damages
21.Aug.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
The Pirate Bay has decided to fight the decision of an Italian judge after it ordered ISPs to block access to the popular tracker. The blocks didn’t prove particularly effective as traffic from Italy only increased but nevertheless, The Pirate Bay is determined to reverse the decision.
Yesterday, The Pirate Bay filed an appeal against the decree that forced Italian ISPs to block the BitTorrent tracker. Pirate Bay’s lawyers Giovanni Battista Gallus and Francesco Micozzi are convinced that they have a strong case. “The decree can be defined as ‘original’ or ‘creative’ at best” they told TorrentFreak.
The Pirate Bay administrators are accused of making copyrighted material available on the Internet for commercial purposes. Giovanni and Francesco told us that this is a strange accusation, considering the nature of the site. “…even the judge who issued the decree states that no infringing material is hosted on The Pirate Bay, which provides just a tracker search engine,” they told us.
“The judge tries to ‘create’ a sort of contributory infringement accusation against The Pirate Bay,” the lawyers explained. It is alleged that the tracker and the search engine are absolutely necessary for the users to “search and locate the content on single computers”. That’s not all, the judge goes even further by stating that the name of the site, ‘The Pirate Bay’, signals intent to infringe copyright.
The lawyers think that because of the lack of jurisdiction, the block should not have been issued in the first place. They also dispute the claim that The Pirate Bay is distributing copyright infringing material. “We will bring all our arguments before the Tribunal, and we are confident of the Tribunal’s decision,” they said.
In previous articles, we suggested that the IFPI, Pirate Bay’s arch rival, might have had a hand in the block. The reverse DNS of the ‘blocked page’ pointed to IFPI’s servers, although they have changed that now. This is suspicious to say the least, and Pirate Bay’s lawyers told us: “It is clear that this decree has been strongly backed up by FIMI (the Italian IFPI),” citing a press release FIMI published where they applauded the Pirate Bay block.
A Tribunal of three judges will now look into the appeal, and a decision is expected in a few weeks. After that, the decision of the Tribunal can be further appealed by both parties before the Higher Court.
This is an article from: TorrentFreak
The Pirate Bay Appeals Italian Blockade
20.Aug.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
