Danish ISP Doesn't Understand Why It's Supposed To Block Pirate Bay

from the fighting-it dept

Earlier this week, we noted that a Danish court had told ISP Tele2 that it needed to start blocking access to the Pirate Bay. Last year, a court had also ordered Tele2 to block access to AllofMp3.com. Tele2 complied with that first order, though apparently it was quite easy to get around the block (no surprise there). However, apparently sensing the outrage being felt concerning these blocks, Tele2 is considering fighting back against the order (with support from other ISPs). The company claims that it needs "clarification" on the ruling, though doesn't seem to provide much more detail than that at this point.

Filed Under: blocking, danish court, denmark, pirate bay
Companies: pirate bay, tele2

Danish Court Tells ISP To Block PirateBay

from the if-at-first-you-don't-succeed... dept

Back in 2006, a Danish court demanded that ISP Tele2 start blocking access to the AllofMp3.com website. It seemed like a bizarre request, focused on just one ISP. While the ISP complied, apparently the block was quite easy to get around and the overall impact of the ban was minimal. However, that didn't stop the IFPI from talking up what an important move it was. Along those lines, the IFPI has now convinced a Danish judge to also tell Tele2 that it needs to block the Pirate Bay as well. Are they going to demand that Tele2 also blocks Google and Usenet? It's difficult to see the rationale behind this -- and even more difficult to understand why they think that this time such a block will actually be effective. Yet, of course, the IFPI will talk about what a significant move this is in their ongoing fight against new business models piracy.

Filed Under: blocking, danish court, denmark, pirate bay
Companies: pirate bay, tele2

Pirate Bay Sued, As Expected

from the significant-blow,-right? dept

As was widely expected, Swedish prosecutors have filed criminal charges against the guys who run The Pirate Bay. It's still unclear how creating a search engine that doesn't actually store or handle any unauthorized material breaks the law, but I guess we'll find out how that works during the trial. If anything, though, this will probably work just like every similar file sharing lawsuit, where the end result is merely that more people know about it and more people use it (or move on to use the "next" version that comes out). Also, as some are pointing out, the indictment only includes a very small number of files. It really took one and a half years to come up with such a small list?

Filed Under: copyright, lawsuit, pirate bay, sweden
Companies: pirate bay

Ronald Goldman's Father Sues Pirate Bay Over OJ Simpson Book. Will He Sue Google Too?

from the your-bizarre-story-for-friday dept

It's really not all that surprising that when people first discover The Pirate Bay they think that it's responsible for the unauthorized content that people can find through it. However, at some point you would think they would take the time to understand what's really going on and how it's more of a search engine than anything else. Unfortunately, too many people seem to jump right to the "sue them!" stage. That's apparently what's happened with Fred Goldman, the father of Ronald Goldman, the guy who was killed along with O.J. Simpson's ex-wife years ago. Goldman won a civil lawsuit against Simpson, for which Simpson owes him millions of dollars. Since Simpson isn't paying, the court has been turning over various assets to Goldman, including the royalties from the bizarre "If I Did It," book that Simpson wrote. It's that book that's the problem. Apparently (and not surprisingly, for a best seller), someone scanned in the book and put up a torrent of it which can be found via The Pirate Bay. Goldman, of course, is blaming the site rather than whoever actually made it available and suing the Pirate Bay, claiming he's "lost" at least $150,000. That, of course, incorrectly assumes that the people who downloaded the book would have bought it in the first place (most of them wouldn't have) and that none of the people who downloaded it later bought the book to read it in the more convenient book form. No matter. It's more fun to just sue. Goldman tries to bolster his argument by pointing out that The Pirate Bay has big name advertisers on the site, but that doesn't change the fact that it's not the one who offered up the infringing content. Besides, if that's Goldman's criteria, why doesn't Goldman sue Google as well? After all, a simple search on Google shows that you can find the book there as well -- and there are advertisements right next to it as well.

Filed Under: book, oj simpson, ronald goldman
Companies: pirate bay

Will There Be A New Bittorrent?

from the time-to-get-working-on-it dept

At the end of October one of the admins of the world's largest Bittorrent site sat down for an interview and predicted the protocol's demise. Citing Bittorrent, Inc.'s corporate ties and some technical limitations, brokep announced that The Pirate Bay was working on a new protocol to succeed Bram Cohen's Bittorrent. The idea's been percolating throughout the filesharing scene since then: a small survey of top site admins conducted by TorrentFreak found opinion divided over whether Bittorrent will be replaced.

It's true that the protocol's been asked to do things that its creator didn't envision. Clients now use encryption to get around ISP traffic shaping and sometimes pad files to improve interoperability with other networks. DHT functionality, which removes the need for a central tracker, was implemented in a chaotic, piecemeal fashion. Private trackers have to monkey around with torrents' announce URLs in order to monitor individual users' activity. Torrent files lack metadata. Traversing firewalls remains an issue. And various researchers have created custom clients that prove the protocol can be subverted by selfish users. There are tacked-on, vulnerable and subpar aspects to the way Bittorrent works — plenty of room for improvement, in other words.

But assuming a technically superior standard is produced, will it be adopted? It's easy to find examples for and against: the Ogg Vorbis audio codec offers better sound quality than MP3, no licensing entanglements, and several awfully-cool features (like the ability to reduce a file's size without reencoding it). But Ogg has never really caught on. Some users employ the also-technically-superior WMA and AAC formats, but only to the extent that Microsoft and Apple force them. For most users, MP3 seems to be good enough. On the other hand, online video has adopted new codecs almost as soon as they become available, moving from VCD to SVCD to MPEG to DivX to Xvid and beyond. The situation's so complex that utilities exist for the sole purpose of untangling a given AVI's miasma of codecs.

What makes these cases differ? It all comes down to timing: consumers will switch technical standards so long as doing so carries few costs (i.e. only requires that more free software be downloaded). Ogg Vorbis hadn't attracted enough attention by the time portable MP3 players arrived. Once the supply chain for MP3 decoding chips was established and a generation of compatible players purchased, the game was pretty well decided. By comparison, only a handful of exotic DVD players bother to support the video formats commonly found on P2P networks. Most portable digital video players still count on users recompressing their files to save space and conserve CPU cycles. Once there's an established infrastructure — of either hardware, accumulated code or simple corporate momentum — consumers may stick with suboptimal technical standards. But prior to that point, users will stay close to the cutting edge.

Bittorrent seems to be on the cusp of this transition. Some hardware devices are coming to market with the standard baked in, but not too many. Various organizations like Miro, Joost and Blizzard Software are building parts of their business around the protocol, but not in an irreversible manner. If Bittorrent gains much more attention, its supporting infrastructure of trackers and open source projects will likely trump whatever advantages a new standard can offer. But I think that there remains a window of opportunity for elite users to popularize a new protocol, should they settle on one. Brokep and his peers still have a few months to steal BT's thunder.

Filed Under: bittorrent
Companies: pirate bay

Charges Likely To Be Filed Against The Pirate Bay

from the the-game-of-whack-a-mole-continues dept

While the Pirate Bay has been known for quite some time among many people, the moment that really got them the most attention was when (thanks to pressure from the US) Swedish officials took the site down and began an investigation. It only took a little while for the site to come back up, after which traffic shot up in large part thanks to the press attention from the recording industry declaring "victory" over the site being down. The Swedish investigation, however, has apparently had a tough time figuring out if The Pirate Bay actually breaks any laws. After all, it's really just a search engine for content. The company doesn't host any of that content itself. Admittedly, plenty of content you can find from The Pirate Bay is unauthorized, but some of it is perfectly legitimate. The people who are making content available may be breaking copyright law, but simply indexing and pointing people to that content should be perfectly legal.

It seems hard to justify going after the Pirate Bay for anything, and it's taken Swedish investigators well over a year to come up with charges it can throw at the operators of the site -- though it sounds like they won't be filed for a few months. Oddly, it seems that part of the strategy isn't just to go after the folks who run the site, but also one of their employers, who is apparently a politically controversial figure. Torrentfreak suggests that this move is designed to move public sympathy against the site, though until the evidence is presented, it's difficult to assume anything. No matter who is charged and for what, get ready for the next case to watch in the ongoing global game of legal whack-a-mole by the recording industry.

Filed Under: bittorrent, copyright, file sharing, lawsuits, music, sweden
Companies: pirate bay

The Pirate Bay To Sue Entertainment Companies For Attacks

from the could-get-interesting dept

Well, this could get interesting. Following the leak of MediaDefender's emails, the folks behind The Pirate Bay now believe they have enough evidence to sue many major entertainment firms for "infrastructural sabotage, denial of service attacks, hacking and spamming." Basically, there's evidence in the emails that a bunch of firms, including Universal, EMI, Sony, Paramount and others were using MediaDefender to try to mess with The Pirate Bay's system. Whether or not the lawsuit actually goes anywhere may depend on a lot of factors (including Swedish laws, which I am totally unfamiliar with). There may be some questions about how the emails in question were obtained. And, of course, the entertainment companies will likely counter that they were just trying to protect their own materials -- which could find a sympathetic ear in a courtroom. Either way it would be quite a lawsuit.

Filed Under: copyright, denial of service, p2p, sabotage
Companies: emi, fox, paramount, pirate bay, sony, ubisoft, universal

Prince Misses The Point: Sues YouTube, eBay, Pirate Bay For Copyright Infringement

from the and-it-looked-like-he-was-getting-somewhere dept

For many years it had seemed like Prince was one of the major music industry stars who actually understood the new business models made possible by the internet, and how those could be leveraged without wasting time on worrying about those who were making unauthorized copies. Unfortunately, for all his innovation in the space, it looks like he, too, has fallen victim to trying to sue those who are out there promoting his works. Prince had experimented widely with a variety of innovations in making, distributing and promoting music -- including his recent offer giving away his latest CD for free with newspapers. He'd also done a number of other promotions, all designed to push more people to his concerts and events where he could make even more money. That's why it's both surprising and disappointing to find out that Prince is now going to the other extreme and is suing YouTube, eBay and the Pirate Bay for making his works available.

There are quite a few things that are problematic about this lawsuit -- with the first one still being that he's suing the wrong parties. The sites he's suing are all the platforms which others are using for distribution. They're not involved in the content at all, and if he wants to sue, he should be suing those who are uploading his content. However, the much more important issue is how backwards this is and how it goes against nearly every other part of his strategy. Nearly every other part of Prince's strategy had seemed to be focused on the simple idea that the more his music got out there, the more ways there were for him to make money -- whether it be from more people wanting to see him in concert or getting others (sponsors, partners, even fans) to pay him upfront to create his next group of songs so that he doesn't need to worry about monetizing the music after it's been produced. These are strategies that make sense, and actually become even more valuable when his music is being heavily promoted online for free by his biggest fans. This kind of strategy backfires when you try to also maintain strict copyright control. For someone who had been so creative in figuring out new business models that don't require limiting fans via copyright, it's disappointing to see Prince go in the opposite direction -- potentially harming much of the good will he's built up.

In the meantime, it's looking like Trent Reznor may quickly be taking away the baton as a well-known musician who is experimenting with cool new models designed to get more music out there and then providing incentives to make money elsewhere. Reznor is now being quoted as telling fans that they should be downloading his music for free from his own site, rather than wasting money on buying counterfeit CDs.

Filed Under: copyright, music, prince
Companies: ebay, google, pirate bay, youtube

Record Label Begs Fans To Put Latest Tracks On Pirate Bay To Help Bandwidth Load

from the well-how-about-that dept

Paul Talbot writes "The independent record label Labrador Records has been giving away a 68 track free MP3 sampler to promote their summer material. However, they couldn't cope with the demand. Rather than withdraw the downloads, they've chosen to use a mirror service and are actually asking people to put the content on thepiratebay.org." Yes, there are certainly more independent labels who are learning to embrace file sharing as a great promotional tool, but it's nice to see one clearly finding value in using The Pirate Bay and asking more people to help out. It would certainly go against the RIAA's claims that The Pirate Bay and similar services have no legitimate reason for being in business.

Filed Under: copyright, music, p2p, pirate bay, riaa
Companies: labrador records, pirate bay