The anti-piracy lobby has been putting pressure on ISPs to act against customers who download copyright infringing content. Thus far, most ISPs have simply forwarded the takedown requests they receive, but Cox Communications is taking it one step further, by disconnecting alleged copyright infringers.
With 3.5 million Internet subscribers, Cox Communications is one of the larger ISPs in the US. Like all the other Internet providers, Cox receives numerous copyright related takedown requests from anti-piracy organizations.
However, it’s how they handle these requests that’s quite unique, and disturbing to say the least. Instead of sending their customer an email, notifying that they have received a DMCA takedown request on their behalf, Cox disables their Internet connection. Here is a quote from the warning page customers get to see when their Internet connection is cut off (screenshot below the article).
Under the DMCA, we have the responsibility to temporarily disable your Internet access, until such time as you take the necessary steps to remove the infringing files and to prevent further distribution of copyrighted material.
There are a couple of things wrong with this notification. First of all, and most importantly, the DMCA doesn’t oblige Cox to disable a customer’s Internet access at all. They have to notify their customer of the alleged infringement, but the measures they actually take are clearly out of proportion, and definitely not in the best interest of their customers.
Indeed, it has already led to a lot of frustration with Cox customers. One of them told TorrentFreak that he has been struggling for two days to regain his Internet access. The customer in question was instructed to call a phone number in order to resolve the issue, but it was impossible to get though for most of the day. When he finally got hold of someone via the regular customer service, he was simply told that he should call the same number he was given before.
After being on hold for more than an hour he eventually got through. The Cox customer told us what happened next: “He [Cox employee] said that he is going to allow me to have the Internet enabled for 1 hour while I ‘call my router company so they can walk me through securing my wireless network.’ If I don’t call back in the next hour, he will turn the Internet off again.”
First-time offenders will eventually get their Internet access reinstated, but not without being warned that they might lose it permanently if they receive two more takedown requests. “If it happens three times, I will be referred to their headquarters in Atlanta,” the Cox customer told us.
We contacted Cox’s customer support to verify this, and we were told that there is indeed a three strikes policy in place. When a Cox subscriber receives three takedown requests, their Internet access will be cut off entirely. Interestingly, this is the same policy that the European Parliament voted against last week, because it “restricts the rights and freedoms of Internet users.”
It turns out that Cox doesn’t need legislation to implement a three-strikes policy though. “Cox does in fact have a 3 strikes policy with regards to violations of our acceptable use policy for Internet service. If a customer’s service gets suspended 3 times for the same type of violation the customer risks having their Internet service terminated,” Cox’s customer support told TorrentFreak.
It is of course up to Cox how they handle alleged violations of their acceptable use policy. However, the problem lies in the fact that they act upon accusations made by the MPAA, RIAA and other anti-piracy organizations who employ evidence gathering methods that are shoddy, to say the least. In addition, there is still no law that requires a person to secure their wireless network and there are even routers that enable people to share their connection with outsiders.
We think that Cox clearly overstepped the mark here. Customers might not make as much noise as the lawyers of the entertainment industry, but eventually, they are the ones who bring in the money. Cox Communication currently uses the slogan “Your friend in the digital age.” Some friend…
Cox’s Warning Screen (click to enlarge)
Post from: TorrentFreak
30.Sep.08 
TorrentFreak 
Comments Off
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?
As we already predicted last week, Heroes is leading this weeks chart. Our statistics show that, across all BitTorrent sites, the two episodes from Heroes’ season opening were downloaded approximately two million times each in one week.
The show was downloaded the most in the UK (15%), where the official season opening is scheduled for October 1st. Canada, France and Australia complete the top 5. Although most TV-broadcasters won’t be happy to read these figures, one could argue that BitTorrent has actually helped TV-shows to build a stronger, broader, and more involved fanbase.
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.
Top Downloads September 21 - September 28
Post from: TorrentFreak
30.Sep.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
Two brothers who made millions from an empire of scam file-sharing sites have had their identities revealed. Matt and Jake Dylewski mis-sold subscriptions to FullReleases.com and dozens of similar sites, misleading customers and motivating them to take action. Most of the sites have been taken offline.
For those first getting interested in file-sharing, it can be a bewildering experience, with a huge array of software clients, sites and jargon to cut through. Make no mistake, it’s easy to take a wrong turn. Instead of ending up on Mininova or The Pirate Bay, novice users find themselves clicking their way to the dark side and ending up on a ’scam’ site.
A ’scam’ file-sharing site can operate in numerous ways, but in the end the aims tend to be the same. They either try to offload malware or, more commonly, try to part the site visitor from his cash by getting him to sign up to access the site with his credit card. Usually, users pay a relatively small amount in the first instance, say $5-$10 per month. However, it’s not unusual for additional charges to start appearing on the victim’s card at a later date. Canceling the agreement with the scammers can be a nightmare.
In return for the money paid, the user usually gains access to a basic meta-search site, which simply searches and offers results from completely free sites such as Mininova or The Pirate Bay. Millions of unsuspecting people are signing up for these scam sites (often advertised by ‘legitimate’ BitTorrent sites), and have done for some years now.
One of the most famous scam sites is FullReleases.com, which has been in operation for a few years now and has generated a fortune for its owners and a whole lot of misery for its ‘customers’. Today, those victims have reason to celebrate since the owners of the site have had their identities revealed and, related or not, most of the sites they operated are parked and not longer operational.
M. Dylewski and J. Dylewski are reportedly the sons of Polish immigrants who settled in Surrey, BC, Canada. After their successes running a pair of warez sites, in 2005 they created FullReleases.com and set about making their millions with false claims and misleading operations which targeted naive entrants to the file-sharing phenomenon. The site went on to become one of the world’s most famous scam sites, parting untold people from their cash and prompting thousands of complaints.
However, rumor has that the brothers didn’t stop with one site, and started to build an empire. Dozens more appeared, with some deliberately named to trade on the successes of established genuine sites, with domains such as adultreactor, bitdig, releases.ws and rapidsharereactor.
Right now, many of these sites have been taken down, including FullReleases.com, and although this in itself won’t get refunds for those that have been scammed already, it will certainly give them a boost. It is not 100% sure why all the scam sites are suddenly parked or offline, but it is likely that the brothers are enjoying an early retirement.
So how can people avoid getting sucked in by these scammers and others like them? It’s amazingly simple - NEVER pay to download torrents since they are always available for free, and for God’s sake, Google!
Post from: TorrentFreak
30.Sep.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
Swedish book publishers have presented a study in which they show how widespread book piracy is in Sweden. The publishers think that this copyright infringement has a disastrous effect on their income, while The Pirate Bay is surprised to see that the publishers used their torrent database illegally.
The Swedish book publishers organization recently issued a report in which they revealed that 85% of the best-selling books in Sweden are available on The Pirate Bay. Not really shocking news, Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde told TorrentFreak he’s actually “a bit sad that it’s not 100%.”
Perhaps of more interest is the technique used by the publishers’ organization to gather their data. In the report they write that they had to code a specialized tool to scrape the Pirate Bay database for book titles, since there were no ready-made tools available.
Peter Sunde is now arguing that they were breaking the law by scraping the site multiple times without permission. “The Pirate Bay actually owns the copyright to its own database of torrents,” Sunde writes on his blog. Sunde further refers to the Pirate Bay’s Usage Policy, which the book publishers organization has violated.
In true MPAA style, Sunde is determined to fight for his intellectual property. “I called them up and asked them to present more information about the technical things, so we can send them an invoice if they don’t want to be dragged into court,” Sunde told TorrentFreak in a comment.
Meanwhile, the true reason behind the real book publishers’ study remains vague. As we’ve pointed out many times before, piracy can actually boost book sales. One of the prime examples is best-selling author Paulo Coelho, who said he sold thousands of extra copies because he pirated his own books. Coelho’s success later inspired the publisher and Leander Kahney - the author of the two books - to do the same, with several others following this example. Particularly for book authors, piracy seems to be a useful promotional tool, rather than a threat. For now, that is.
We can’t foresee what will happen if someone launches a Kindle ready pirate site. More on this later, for sure.
Post from: TorrentFreak
29.Sep.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
Georgia had been in the headlines recently for its military confrontation with Russia. Before hostilities engulfed the country, however, it was celebrating 100 years of film-making. But, with no laws protecting the movie industry from piracy, how does Georgia cope with the Internet pirates?
Straddling both Eastern Europe and Southwestern Asia, Georgia hit world headlines recently for its conflict with South Ossetia and ultimately the Russian Federation. Rather than scenes of war dominating visual media, 2008 should have been a year of celebration for the Georgian movie industry. Before the hostilities it was marking 100 years of cinema in the country.
As Georgia struggles to return to some sort of normality, life goes on for businesses in the region, including the movie industry. However, the Georgian movie industry has to face some unique challenges. According to a report, along with other sites, two of the most popular Geogian movie download sites gol.ge and avoe.ge are able to operate freely. Unlike in the US, Europe and many other places around the world, there are no laws in place in Georgia to deal with unofficial movie sites.
This lack of legislation means that the movie industry has to deal with the issue in ways which differ from those of their US and European counterparts. In moves which will seem largely alien to most readers, the Georgian movie industry actually tries its best to keep on friendly terms with the unauthorized download sites in order to reach agreements with them.
Devi Gvaxaria, Manager of the Marketing Department at Cinema Rustaveli told The Financial that they deal with a unique situation in Georgia. “We are happy to have good relations with the main movie sites of Caucasus Online, who consider our request not to put films on the Internet at the same time as their first showings in the theatres,” he said, adding “But these are only some of them, there are different sites which are out of our control.”
Gvaxaria notes that most of the unofficial sites get their movies from other pirate sites internationally, but there is the language barrier, since most Georgians would prefer them in their native ‘Kartuli’. Of course, these technical limitations prove minor stumbling blocks for the resourceful.
“Several times hackers have rewritten the verbal part of a movie from our cinema,” says Gvaxaria. “They put a Dictaphone into their pockets before entering the film, which is impossible for us to stop. We can’t just check each and every person who enters our cinema.” Clearly Mr Gvaxaria hasn’t been to a big movie at a US theater recently.
Natia Meparishvili, PR and Marketing Manager of Cinema Amirani believes that the best protection against piracy is the tradition among the people of going to the cinema. However, it appears that negotiations with the unauthorized providers to keep brand-new movies off their sites for a while gives the theaters a little breathing room to make enough profit during the opening weeks.
Negotiating with pirates is something we have covered before, but it seems unlikely that US movie companies will follow this lead. Indeed, this interesting situation in Georgia will probably change too, as the article notes that the movie business is going to change “their friendly relations” with the unofficial sites and modify the discussion to be based around “the language of law”.
It sounds like Georgia is getting into a Western state of mind, in more ways than one.
Post from: TorrentFreak
29.Sep.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, “Righteous Kill” tops the chart.
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. Currently both DVDrips, DVD Screeners and R5 rips are counted.
RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.
As of September 29, 2008…
Post from: TorrentFreak
29.Sep.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
There is a continuing battle surrounding Digital Rights Management (DRM). While most rights holders see it as a way of maximizing their profits, users see it as a way to reduce their ability to actually use the products they bought, the way they want to. Ironically, one of the books that spells out what is wrong with DRM, is now available with DRM.
DRM has managed to become widespread without the knowledge of many. DVDs, MP3s, books, software, games and even audio CDs (although such DRM’d CDs are not allowed to use the CD logo), they can all come with DRM nowadays. DRM issues occasionally hit the headlines, with instances like the Sony Rootkit lawsuits and HD-DVD fiasco, with TorrentFreak even running a competition to design an anti- DRM T-shirt last year (results are here).
The problem with DRM is that it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. The only people who are negatively affected are honest customers, since pirates will get their DRM-free version off BitTorrent anyway. In fact, DRM seems to produce an increase in downloads over legitimate sales, with the ‘Spore’ fiasco as a recent example.
Public reaction to DRM is not favorable, and has been growing worse (such as when a DRM-based service closes). Even though some retailers have started to sell their goods without DRM, others have not, or have released products selling stuff ONLY in DRM encumbered formats. A prime example of without DRM is Amazon, with its music, and an example of with DRM is Amazon and their Kindle ebook reader. Kindle ebooks are sold complete with DRM, locking the books to a single system. This applies to all Kindle ebooks sold via Amazon.
One of the Kindle e-books looks a little out of place with DRM though. A member of the US-based Students for Free Culture organization informed TorrentFreak that the book Free Culture, by Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, is available through the service. The book deals with the rise of the copyright situation in the US, and how laws in other areas were changed to keep pace with advances in technology, sometimes making obsolete decades, or centuries of precedent.
The fact that this book is available in a DRM format might not seem all that important, except that the book itself spells out what is wrong with DRM. The book is available as a 100% free download on the book’s official site. However, short of violating the DMCA by circumventing the DRM, it is hard to put the pdf version of the book on the Kindle, exemplifying the problem. Most ironically, though, is that the subtitle of the book is “How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity”, so the book has become its own example.
Prof. Lessig did not respond to requests for comment on this story, but he will be giving a keynote speech at SFC’s “Free Culture 08” on October 11th.
Post from: TorrentFreak
28.Sep.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
It has been almost a year since a coalition of anti-piracy organizations forced Torrent.is, the largest BitTorrent site in Iceland, to go offline. In the months that followed, the BitTorrent site has won in court more than once, but it has not returned yet, as the anti-piracy groups continue to come up with new claims.
Founded in May 2005, Torrent.is had around 26,500 active users before the site was taken offline. The site only allowed Icelandic IPs to connect to the tracker, and it was by far the largest and most famous private BitTorrent tracker in Iceland.
Its popularity didn’t go unnoticed with the local anti-piracy lobby either. During November last year, Svavar Kjarrval, the owner of the tracker, received a preliminary injunction. While the majority of BitTorrent tracker owners would throw in the towel when confronted with legal action, Svavar decided to put up a fight. “I’m going to fight this as far as I possibly can. The general public seems to be on our side,” he told TorrentFreak at the time.
It turned out that he made the right decision. In March the court ruled in favor of the BitTorrent tracker. Svavar, and all Icelandic BitTorrent users were pleased with the outcome, but the legal bullying was far from over. As expected, the preliminary injunction stayed in effect, as the Icelandic movie and music industries announced they would appeal the decision at the Icelandic Supreme Court.
This May, the case was heard by the Supreme Court, and Torrent.is won again. The case was dismissed because some of the plaintiffs were found to have no legal grounds to pursue an injunction, and Torrent.is received an additional 400,000 ISK ($5025 US or 3250 Euros) on top of the 500,000 ISK that was already awarded in March.
Speaking to TorrentFreak, Torrent.is owner, Svavar Kjarrval, said he was “very happy with the decision.” He even planned to reopen the tracker on the May 16th. However, it never got that far as STEF (the Icelandic RIAA) filed a new lawsuit, demanding the shutdown of the site and some form of financial compensation.
This case was heard, and yesterday - yet again - the District Court ruled in favor of Torrent.is. The court again dismissed STEF’s demand to confirm the injunction. However, the legal bullying is still not over. Not all demands were dismissed directly, and STEF is likely to appeal at the Supreme Court for the ones that weren’t.
“I am happy about that partial victory even though I hoped for a complete dismissal,” Svavar told TorrentFreak in a response to the latest ruling. “The future is uncertain but I have confidence that the Icelandic court system will see that the case is based on a shaky foundation.”
Svavar further said that he’s not sure whether he will reopen the site once this action is over, however long that may take.
Post from: TorrentFreak
27.Sep.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
A Florida man was sentenced to three years probation on Thursday for his part in running a ‘warez’ server. The 55 year old, known online as ‘kidzap’, would’ve most likely been sent to jail, but avoided incarceration by pleading guilty to conspiring to commit copyright infringement. He collects a $2,000 fine.
Back in April this year, we reported that five men were arrested in connection with the operation of ‘warez’ scene servers known as TEN (The Ether Net), TBR (The Boxer Rebellion) and NRH (Nite Ranger Hideout).
The men were snared as part of ‘Operation Higher Education’ - a component of ‘Operation Fastlink‘ - and charged with conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. Dominic Tymorek, a 53 year-old from Woodstock, Georgia, and 57 year-old Robert Hardick, of Getzville, N.Y., faced three counts. Steven Fiatarone, a 55 year-old from Spring Hill, Florida and 43-year-old Michael Uszakow, of Oakdale, Minn., faced two counts and William Parrott, of Roanoke Rapids, N.C., faced one count.
Previously, 57 year-old Robert Hardick, known as ‘tcut’, was found guilty of helping to run the ‘TEN’ and ‘TBR’ servers and was facing a five year prison sentence and huge fine. However, Hardick agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy, and as a result picked up three years probation instead, which included 6 months of home confinement.
Steven Fiatarone of Spring Hill, Florida, also faced a harsh sentence of 5 years in jail and a $250,000 fine. However, he pleaded guilty on July 8th this year to one count of conspiracy, making a similar deal to Hardwick in return for a more lenient sentence.
On Thursday, Fiatarone appeared in the U.S. District Court for Connecticut, for his offenses linked to his operation of the warez server known as NRH (Nite Ranger Hideout), which was actually located in a school in Emporia, Virginia. Fiatarone, also known as ‘kidzap’, setup the server in 2001 and was alleged to have uploaded over 23,000 files and downloaded more than 40,000 in his role as administrator of NRH during 2002 and 2003.
Senior United States District Judge Ellen Bree Burns sentenced Fiataroine to three years of probation for conspiring to commit criminal copyright infringement, with the addition of a $2,000 fine.
Post from: TorrentFreak
27.Sep.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
It’s been a bad week for the RIAA. First their headline campaign victory over Jammie Thomas was thrown out, and then the government said it ’strongly opposes’ a bill lobbied for by the entertainment industries.
It was a midweek battle that left the RIAA’s campaign against file-sharers reeling on the ropes. Until now, the RIAA’s approach was to throw money at attorneys, who would then take on random targets, unless money and promises were given - ‘legal mugging’ as it were.
It must have felt like an attack from behind when the RIAA heard that they lost its only major court victory, with a mistrial being declared in Capitol V Thomas. Making things worse, the Department of Justice, viewed by some to be the bully’s trusted lieutenant, turned on the content industries by soundly criticizing a bill aiming to increase copyright and patent enforcement powers.
The Thomas case is now a proverbial millstone around the neck of the RIAA. At first it looks impressive, and gives a frightening impression to anyone that thinks to challenge them, but now it’s starting to drag them down. Not only was the decision in the case thrown out, the statement by the judge in support of the mistrial reads like a critique of the legal arguments put forward by the RIAA over the last 5 years.
Yet, the millstone around the neck is not just in the refuting of legal arguments. It also extends to the excessive damages that were awarded in the first trial. The $9250 per infringement has been argued to be so far past constitutional restrictions on excessive punishments, that it has brought it into public attention. Because of this, it may end up reducing the maximum amount of damages and fines that can be awarded, which may also undermine the settlement encouragement (or ‘pay instead of fight’) strategy. The end of the judge’s order says it all:
While the Court does not discount Plaintiffs’ claim that, cumulatively, illegal downloading has far-reaching effects on their businesses, the damages awarded in this case are wholly disproportionate to the damages suffered by Plaintiffs. Thomas allegedly infringed on the copyrights of 24 songs – the equivalent of approximately three CDs, costing less than $54, and yet the total damages awarded is $222,000 – more than five hundred times the cost of buying 24 separate CDs and more than four thousand times the cost of three CDs. While the Copyright Act was intended to permit statutory damages that are larger than the simple cost of the infringed works in order to make infringing a far less attractive alternative than legitimately purchasing the songs, surely damages that are more than one hundred times the cost of the works would serve as a sufficient deterrent.
While 24 songs is more like two CDs (than the three the court states), that damages should go from 4000x losses (assuming 3CDs) to 100x, means that the $222,000 would be more like $5,550. That’s quite a difference. The same could be applied to amounts demanded in pre-trial settlements, where the RIAA has often asked too much. The court’s math is far more reasonable, despite being calculated using retail CD prices, which have all manner of mark-ups and distribution costs that are not relevant to digital music included. A digital download doesn’t have to pay for the CD blank and doesn’t have to pay for transportation to the store. There are no printing costs or middlemen profit. The court gives an estimated cost of $2.25 per track, the actual cost for a download is more than seven times less than that.
Of course, other arguments, ranging from definition semantics, to trying to use criminal law as precedent, were denied as well. Some of these arguments were novel, others seemed like desperation.
The other news from Wednesday didn’t help either, especially in the muddling of civil and criminal enforcement of copyright. The Department of Justice sent a letter to Senators Leahy and Specter over the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act (EIPRA) of 2008, which passed through the Senate judiciary committee last week. It stated that the Departments of Justice and Commerce had ’strong and significant concerns’ with portions of the act. In short, they said they didn’t want to be used as free lawyers for the entertainment industry, and also felt that the position of an ‘Anti-Piracy Czar’ would be, surprisingly, unconstitutional. When even the US Justice department, which has seemed indifferent to the US Constitution in recent years, uses it as an excuse to oppose new powers, it could be likened to rats leaving a sinking ship.
Of course, the past week hasn’t been only bad news for the RIAA and its members, it’s been bad press for them too. On Monday, they elected to proceed to a jury trial in Maverick V Harper, with a date set for November. The RIAA were unwilling to accept a $200/infringement settlement offered by the judge. In taking the offer, they would have had a win, but at a lower amount, and left the potential for innocent infringement defenses. However, with the Thomas mistrial ruling two days later, negating any precedent they hoped to point to, and undermining some of the possible defenses, it may seem they have gambled on a treble-or-nothing bet.
The case in question centers around 38 songs, although only 6 were downloaded by MediaSentry. What can make this case interesting is that MediaSentry may be in violation of the law, regarding Texas based investigators, and that the age of the defendant – Whitney Harper was 16 when the infringements allegedly occurred – make an innocent infringement defence possible. Attacking a young girl for actions in her teens may not play well with a jury.
All in all, a bad week for the RIAA, and it may only be the first of many. We may never know if the article written by New York based attorney Ray Backerman did anything to to bring about a closer examination of the RIAA’s cases. Nor can it be overlooked that Wednesdays are not the RIAA’s best days – exactly a week before the Thomas and DOJ setbacks, they set themselves up as targets of ridicule by suing Beckerman. They accused him of allegedly doing what they have been repeatedly accused of doing – irony indeed. Many people are doubtless wondering what excitement October 1st will bring.
Post from: TorrentFreak
26.Sep.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
