WebProNews

Tag: filesharing

  • New Lawsuit Targets More Hurt Locker Downloaders

    If you downloaded the Academy-Award-winning film The Hurt Locker in the past two years, things are really turning out to be a hassle for you.

    That’s because Voltage Pictures, makers of the film, keep going after BitTorrent users.

    According to court documents obtained by TorrentFreak, Voltage Pictures is back and ready to sue 2.514 more people, adding to their already-record-setting numbers when it comes to file-sharing lawsuits. This complaint was filed in Florida, and targets customers of a single ISP, Charter Communications.

    This looks like the same script we’ve seen in the past. Voltage files a complaint with thousands of John Doe IP addresses, and eventually hopes that the ISP will turn over their real identities. “Plaintiff believes that information obtained in discovery will lead to the identification fo each Defendant’s true name and permit Plaintiff to amend this complaint to state the same.” So there you go. As Ernesto at TorrentFreak points out, it’s possible that Voltage Pictures are going after one single ISP because they won’t put up a fight when it comes to giving up subscriber info.

    About two years ago, Voltage Pictures begun the suing bonanza, targeting 5,000 alleged copyright infringers who downloaded The Hurt Locker. Last May they expanded the scope of that suit to include 24,583 defendants. At the time, it broke the previous record for largest file-sharing suit ever – held by the 23,000-person lawsuit that targeted downloaders of the action flick The Expendables.

    The M.O. for the Plaintiffs here is first obtaining the user records from the ISP, then offering each a settlement in the $3,000 range. Many people will simply pay the money to avoid any further complications. This is how the studios say they are recouping their piracy-related losses.

    You can check out the full complaint below:

    New Hl Complaint

    And here’s the list of defendants, just in case you’re a Charter Communications customer and want to check:

    Hl Ip Addresses

  • uTorrent Android App In The Works

    Android users may very well be seeding and leeching right from their mobile devices pretty soon. TorrentFreak is reporting that the uTorrent dev team is currently working on a uTorrent app for Android.

    uTorrent owners BitTorrent Inc. had little to say about the upcoming app – only that it’s in the works and they don’t have any more to say on a possible release date:

    “Like any software company, we know a mobile experience is really important to our users,” they said. “At this point, we don’t yet have an ETA.”

    Apparently, the app would be a full-fledged version of uTorrent – the most popular BitTorrent client in the world. According to the report, it would have all of the same functionality as the desktop version.

    This would be a full-functioning native app – the first of its kind as far as bittorrent clients go. The app would be different than the uTorrent Remote, which is currently available for download in the Android Market. That app allows you to connect to your desktop uTorrent client and control your torrents from your mobile device. You can use the app to search for torrents as well, but they will be added to your desktop uTorrent. You can even shift your completed downloads back to your device for playback. But all the work is being done on your desktop. The new uTorrent app would make this all possible on your Android phone or tablet.

  • Now You Can Carry The Pirate Bay In Your Pocket

    Last month we brought you news that controversial torrent hosting site The Pirate Bay was beginning a transition away from .torrent files in order to host Magnet links, which are both harder to block and require less bandwidth and server space than .torrent files.

    In that story it was reported that the switch to Magnet links would allow the entirety of The Pirate Bay to be stored on a USB drive. That has apparently been confirmed. The Pirate Bay user allisfine has posted a link allowing users to download the entire archive of The Pirate Bay’s Magnet links. The entire file, which purports to be every Magnet link The Pirate Bay hosts, is 90 MB. When unzipped, the archive expands to a whopping 164 MB. Which means that all of The Pirate Bay would fit on the smallest, cheapest USB drives available. Each entry in the archive file includes the Magnet link, the size of the file to be downloaded, and the number of seeders and leechers at the time the snapshot was taken.

    This goes to prove how difficult sites like The Pirate Bay are to shut down. While government action like SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, and the shutdown of MegaUpload are designed to curb so-called piracy, those who are intent on sharing copyrighted material have proven themselves extremely capable when it comes to finding a way around measures designed to thwart them. During last month’s SOPA blackout, The Pirate Bay insisted that they would survive any legislative attempts to shut them down. Meanwhile, recent data has shown that the US government takedown of MegaUpload has done nothing to slow the torrent (if you will) of file sharing being done on the web.

    Mirrors of The Pirate Bay are already all over the internet. They allow would-be file sharers living in countries where The Pirate Bay is blocked to continue to access the site. Now that the entire index of The Pirate Bay’s Magnet links can be shown to fit on a small USB drive, we can expect the number of mirrors to increase dramatically, further stymieing government efforts to block the site.

  • Megaupload To Department of Justice: We Will Fight This

    Downed cyberlocker site MegaUpload is pledging not to go gentle into that good night, as they say are trying to get up and running again.

    On Thursday, the Department of Justice shut down the site, accusing it of being an “international organized criminal enterprise ” that is “responsible for massive worldwide online piracy of numerous types of copyrighted works.” This action prompted a massive backlash from the likes of Twitter and reddit – but the more notable response came from online group Anonymous.

    Anonymous began a campaign dubbed #OpMegaUpload Thursday afternoon, taking down the Department of Justice’s website as well as sites for the MPAA and RIAA. When it was all said and done, #OpMegaUpload stood as the biggest coordinated attack in the history of Anonymous. Though it’s being debated whether the DOJ baited Anonymous into a rash response to undermine credibility, #OpMegaUpload has received plenty of praise on the interwebs.

    And now, MegaUpload says they’re going to fight. Here’s what their lawyer ira Rothken told Reuters:

    The company is looking at its legal options for getting back its servers and its domain and getting its servers back up online. Megaupload will vigorously defend itself. It is really offensive to say that just because people can upload bad things, therefore Megaupload is automatically responsible.

    It seems as though MegaUpload and the U.S. Government have different ideas about the functionality of the site. It’s unlikely that the issue will be resolved in the next couple of days, but that’s the timeframe that Anonymous has given the DOJ. In a video message, the group demands that MegaUpload be restored within 72 hours. If that demand is not met, they threaten to take down servers of the UN, Xbox Live, US Bank, Capital One, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

    Of course, all of this drama is unfolding in front of the SOPA / PIPA backdrop. Following Wednesday’s internet-wide protests, both SOPA and PIPA have been put on the backburner.

  • SOPA & PIPA: The Pirate Bay Worried About The Internet, Not Itself

    The Pirate Bay has long been the favored whipping boy of anti-piracy advocates everywhere. Attempts to block it have been made in many countries, and it is one of the sites that draws the most attention – and ire – in pro-SOPA/PIPA rhetoric. The Pirate Bay, so the argument goes, is exactly the kind of site SOPA and PIPA are designed to protect the entertainment industry from.

    The people who run The Pirate Bay say they aren’t worried, though. In an interview with TorrentFreak they admit to having some concerns, but not for The Pirate Bay itself. They are worried “for democratic reasons.” The Pirate Bay has shown itself more than capable of circumventing whatever attempts at censorship are thrown at it. In fact, they have taken recent steps to ensure that the site will be even harder to block than it already is. Late last week they announced that they would stop hosting .torrent files and switch to Magnet links, which have the advantage of being harder to block and requiring less server storage space and bandwidth. The Magnet link switch means that anyone could host a mirror of the site with sufficiently large USB thumb drive.

    What really concerns The Pirate Bay about SOPA/PIPA is what it means about the political power of the entertainment industry in the United States. They accuse the politicians in support of the bills of being “totally paid off, stupid or copyright holders.” Moreover, they point out that with this legislation the US is proposing to regulate what happens outside America’s borders, as the websites primarily targeted by SOPA/PIPA are largely hosted overseas.

    The Pirate Bay emphasized the global nature of the internet, and the fact that it “can’t be run in one single country.” Apart from just fighting SOPA and PIPA themselves, “we must also take away the possibility for a single country to rule over the global infrastructure.”

    [Source: TorrentFreak]

  • Add RIAA And DHS To List Of Internet Pirates

    Nearly 2,000 years ago the Roman poet Juvenal coined the now-famous phrase, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes, commonly translated “Who watches the watchmen?” For centuries the phrase has been associated with political philosophy and the problem of corrupt government, but in Juvenal’s original poem it referred to the difficulty faced by wealthy men who employed male guards to protect their wives’ marital virtue. Such men might be corruptible, Juvenal argued, and become tempted to take the very thing they are tasked with protecting. Thus the watchmen needed watching.

    Either way, the phrase applies well to the results of an ongoing investigation by TorrentFreak into the practice of illegal downloading. Using YouHaveDownloaded.com, a new Russian site that shows an IP address’s BitTorrent activity, several major opponents of internet piracy have been caught downloading a wide variety of copyrighted content. First came reports that people in offices belonging to Sony, Universal, and Fox had been downloading music and movies of all kinds. Then came the discovery of at least six instances of downloading at the residence of French President Nicholas Sarkozy, an outspoken opponent of piracy and supporter of harsh anti-filesharing measures.

    And the hits just keep on coming. Today it has been discovered that illegal downloading has been rampant in the offices of the RIAA, and the Department of Homeland Security. People at the RIAA have downloaded not only music (which might be expected) but also a variety of other content, including video (seasons 1-5 of Dexter, for example) and audio editing software. The RIAA has become (in)famous for suing anybody and everybody for downloading copyrighted material, and is a fierce advocate of SOPA and PIPA, harsh internet censorship measures currently working their way through the US Congress. Likewise, the Department of Homeland Security has been responsible for seizing and shutting down hundreds of domains for their suspected role in piracy. Yet over 900 of DHS’s IPs were used to download material illegally.

    Throughout this process there has been no comment from any of the organizations caught downloading. No doubt they would claim that the downloading in their offices is not officially sanctioned. That, however, is not in doubt. It is highly unlikely that the RIAA or DHS or Fox or anyone else has encouraged or sanctioned “piracy” in their offices. But the fact remains that these organizations that are so intent on policing the internet use of everyone else are refraining from policing themselves. Though they may well continue to go after grandmas, dead people, and kids, you can bet that you won’t see the RIAA suing one of its own employees for downloading anything.

    [Source: TorrentFreak]

  • Beatles Nostalgia Used In Anti-Piracy Campaign

    Anti-piracy group Music Matters describes themselves as a “collective effort by artists and all those who work in and around music to remind listeners of its enduring value.”

    Their campaign “Why Music Matters” is an attempt to let people know which music-downloading services that they use are not only legal, but which ones support the artists.

    From their Facebook page –

    We are also very proud to launch the Music Matters badge – this trust mark will appear on legal music services and signifies support for musician, producers, songwriters and all those who work in music.

    To provoke conversation about the significance & value of music and the impact it makes on each and every one of us.

    Services that use the “Music Matters Trustmark” include Amazon, iTunes, Napster, HMV and Spotify.

    Music Matters wants to brand “illegal” filesharing as an act that takes away from the importance of music.

    As part of this campaign they are employing short animated videos, released on YouTube, that feature stories about “why music matters.” These videos use the original artist’s songs and all communicate the message that music is important, and that’s why we should pay for it.

    Their latest video features The Beatles. From the AP –

    The estate of iconic British band has pledged its support for the anti-piracy campaign Music Matters by sanctioning a special animated short film set to their recordings.

    The Beatles’ songs provide the soundtrack for the film’s central character, who uses music to mark the milestones in his life. The film – which is available online – aims to encourage people not to fileshare music so artists can get paid for their work.

    Whether you agree with the message of the group or not, the video is pretty awesome. It uses 4 Beatles tracks to show us how important the shared listening experience is to everyone’s life.

    You might have noticed that the video isn’t very specific in it’s anti-piracy message. If you didn’t know what “Music Matters” was, you probably wouldn’t know that this video is anything more that a Beatles tribute clip.

    I guess that works in favor of the Music Matter campaign and against them at the same time. Someone like me, who doesn’t entirely agree with their premise, can still feel emotionally connected to the video.

    But people who don’t know what Music Matters is trying to do can see that message however they want. For instance, “Music is a shared experience, and it matters, yes, so I should go out and download as much Beatles music as I can – for free.”

    The YouTube comments on the video show a pretty heated debate about filesharing and the music industry. Some, however, don’t seem to understand the message of the video.

    This isn’t the first of these animated videos produced by Music Matters. You can watch videos featuring Iron Maiden, Elbow, and Nina Simone here. Here’s one about Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott –