Danny Torrentz

Aston Kutcher Film Premier Cammed… by Kutcher

2010-06-15T16:41:00.003-04:00

By Ben Jones, FreakBits, June 4, 2010

13 minutes of new film Killers was broadcast on the Internet during it’s premier. It’s no ordinary case of camming though, as the person responsible, the films star Aston Kutcher, is the one behind it.

Film star and Hollywood ‘Punkd master’ Aston Kutcher is in the spotlight again. While some might consider it one of his stunts, this one could land him in jail. At the premier of his latest movie, Killers, Kutcher broadcast the first 13 minutes of the premier online.

This has caused a storm of outrage from many in the industry that say he’s not “treating the issue of piracy seriously”. However, the issue of piracy hurting the industry still has little evidence to back it up. In fact the movie industry is doing better than ever, with the MPAA reporting just 3 months ago, that “global box office receipts reached an all time high of $29.9 billion” in 2009.

Kutcher was unapologetic about the act. “Everybody calls people airing stuff on the web piracy,” he told Access Hollywood, “just because they’re not making money off of it yet. If they (executives) can figure out how to make money off of it, they won’t call it piracy anymore.” He is also adamant that he hasn’t broken any laws.

If only that were so. Under the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005, he did indeed commit an offense, unless he had the permission of the copyright holders (Kutcher, while a Producer on the film, is almost certainly not the copyright holder), and means that he can be imprisoned for up to 3 years, or fined, or both.

While it’s unlikely that he will be prosecuted, it does underscore the film industry’s determination to stick to the status-quo of the last few decades.

Digital economy bill: A quick guide

2010-06-14T06:12:00.005-04:00

A guide to the bill as it stands now after being passed by Commons and as it awaits royal assent
guardian.co.uk, April 8, 2010

The controversial Digital Economy Bill may have had a few parts stripped out, it may even be a damp squib. But the remaining, 76-page bill is still a wide-ranging piece of media and technology reform.

Confused? Read our clause-by-clause guide to the bill as it stands now after being adopted by the House Of Commons and as it awaits Royal Assent …

#1: Widen Ofcom's scope from TV and radio to all "media services", promoting investment in networks and public service content. Withdrawn by govt.

#2: Ofcom must produce reports on the state of network infrastructure and internet domain name registration.

#3: In those reports, Ofcom must also report on how TV, radio, on-demand and other editorialised websites contribute to public service objectives.

Illegal downloads

#4: After apparent copyright abuse, copyright holders can send a "copyright infringement report" to ISPs with evidence of the downloading, within one month of the alleged incident. The ISP must notify its subscriber within a month, providing evidence and information about appeals and legal advice.

#5: ISPs, if requested, must provide copyright holders with a "copyright infringement list", listing each infringement by an individual, anonymised user.

#6: Sets out conditions for approval of "initial obligations" code under which Ofcom can deliver the above two copyright clauses.

#7: If no such code exists, Ofcom can make its own.

#8: Populates the content of the "initial obligations" code, which would see that ISPs must not notify subscribers of alleged infringements more than a year old.

#9: Ofcom must report, every three and 12 months, on the extent of online copyright infringement, whether copyright owners are making content legally available, how the education drive is progressing and the volume of "copyright infringement reports".

#10: The govt. can tell Ofcom whether it should order ISPs to sanction speed blocks, bandwidth shaping, site blocking, account suspension or other limits against an ISP customer. First, Ofcom must do consultation and consider whether these measures would work.

#11: If the measures pass Ofcom's muster, the govt. can then level the measures against ISPs, but only if approved by both houses of parliament.

#12: Ofcom must make its own code regulating how these measures can be sanctioned …

#13: The code must cover enforcement procedures, subscriber appeals, costs are taken care of and that Ofcom would arbitrate owner-ISP disputes.

#14: Subscribers can appeal to an independent personnamed in Ofcom's code and, later, to a first-tier tribunal. Costs would be met by the ISP, copyright holder and subscriber.

#15: ISPs that fail to apply technical measures against subscribers can be fined up to £250,000, as Ofcom determines.

#16: Copyright owners must pay Ofcom's costs; both copyright owners and ISPs must pay costs of implementing technical measures; accused subscribers must also share appeal costs.

#17: Defines terms.

#18: High Court can grant injunction forcing ISPs to block access to "online locations" if a "substantial portion" of that location infringes copyright. ISPs must pay copyright owners' court fees unless in "exceptional circumstances". Withdrawn by govt. – will accomplish by other parliamentary means

Domain names

#19: The govt can notify domain name registry if it thinks they are seriously failing, after reading Ofcom's report (#2).

#20: The govt can install its own manager at a failing domain name registry.

#21: The govt can apply for a court order altering the constitution of failing domain name registry.

Channel 4

#22: Adds film production and distribution to Channel 4's remit.C4 must support people "making innovative content" (ie. 4iP?) and must produce news and content for children and teens.

#23: Channel 4 must produce an annual report stating its goals and monitoring its performance. Ofcom must also review C4 and can bring sanctions if it fails.

Commercial TV

#24: Allows for single franchise areas for both Scotland and England.

#25: Sets December 2014 expiry date for Channel 3 and Channel 5 public teletext license terms

#26: Provides for expiry of those licenses themselves.

#27: Ofcom must report on the public teletext licenses and "whether (they) can be provided at a cost to the licence holder that is commercially sustainable", but it "must take account of alternative uses for the capacity that would be available if the public teletext service were not provided".

#28: Can remove public teletext services from Ofcom oversight.

Regional TV news

#29: ~~Allows Ofcom to appoint news providers in a Channel 3 franchise area, and pay them (ie. IFNCs). But Ofcom must notify current franchise owners (ITV) and heed what they say.~~ Withdrawn by govt, throwing IFNC plan in to doubt.

#30: Removes Gaelic programming regulation from Ofcom's auspice.

Radio spectrum

#31: The govt. can specify digital switchover dates.

#32: Ofcom can renew national radio licenses at seven-year terms.

#33: Governs how Ofcom can vary local digital radio licenses.

#34: Sets out how Ofcom can vary local radio licenses after they have been renewed.

#35: Defines areas in which local radio programming must be made.

#36: Ofcom can decide whether to vary national digital radio multiplex license areas and analogue frequency areas if applied to by the license holder.

#37: The govt. allows Ofcom to decide on national digital radio multiplex license renewal.

#38: Generally allows the govt. to include or exclude new measures for broadcast regulation regimes.

#39: Sets out how spectrum holders must pay for the license.

#40: Sets out how Ofcom can penalise license holders which breach their terms.

Video games

#41: Extends game regulation under Video Recordings Act 1984 to games that include violence to humans or animals, encouragement of criminality, drug use, encouragement of alcohol or tobacco use, sexual messages, swearing, offence.

#42: But allows for video game regulatory responsibility to be separate from video works.

Intellectual property

#43: ~~Would allow copyrighted works to be re-used if author can't be found (orphan works).~~ Withdrawn by govt.

#44: Raises maximum penalty for criminally making copyright-infringing works to £50,000.

#45: Absolves libraries of copyright infringement if they lend out non-traditional "books", ie e-books and audiobooks.

BitTorrent Live Stream Brings Film Festival to Gaza

2010-06-13T09:20:00.001-04:00

By Ernesto, TorrentFreak, June 11, 2010

BitTorrent is the most effective way to share large files online, but it can also be used to stream live events. In some cases it’s the only way for people to access cultural events. After a Palestinian filmmaker was denied a visa to visit a film festival in Norway where one of his films is to be screened, the festival’s organizers are turning to BitTorrent to stream the festival live to Gaza.

This weekend, the International “Nordic Youth Film Festival” takes place in Tromsø, Norway. As is the case every year, the festival’s organizers have invited young filmmakers from all over the world to show their work, but not all were allowed to come. Despite an invite, the Palestinian director of Ticket to Azrael was prevented from flying to Norway by the authorities.

“It’s not a secret that the blockade in the Middle East prevents vital resources like water, food and medicines going to the needy people in Palestine. But it is perhaps not as general known that normal people who are traveling out of the area are denied a visa,” the festival organizers write in a blog post commenting on the issue. Luckily, with BitTorrent the filmmaker can still follow the festival.

The Norwegian film festival has close ties to the people of Gaza. The festival’s organizers have previously invited its young filmmakers and after the 2008/2009 siege they continued to collaborate on film workshops over the Internet. This year, due to the political situation, they’re going to take it up a notch by offering a BitTorrent-powered live stream to people all over the world, including Gaza.

The BitTorrent stream that the festival will use is facilitated by The Far North Living Lab which has experience with the technology. Last year the lab kicked off with a spectacular experiment in which they used BitTorrent to stream a 2K resolution film onto the big screen, and a few months later they hosted the first BitTorrent-powered live streamed concert.

The Far North Living Lab start their live stream from the festival tonight during the opening. In order to get the stream to Gaza and other parts of the Internet they’ve set up a BitTorrent-powered live stream (approx 1.1mbit h264, full PAL resolution) that will be transmitting from Norway’s oldest still-used cinema. Similar to the previous projects, the lab’s researchers are using the P2P-Next codebase.

“This is an important opportunity to reach our goal for an international awareness of Youth Cinema,” festival director Hermann Greuel told TorrentFreak.

An important aspect is that through the stream young filmmakers in Gaza can follow the festival. “The current stream will not be possible on a central place or event in Gaza due to special permissions from the Gaza government, but the stream is available in Gaza,” he added.

It’s good to see that there are filmmakers and enthusiasts who put BitTorrent to creative use, rather than simply accusing the technology of facilitating copyright infringement.

Readers who want to check out the stream can do so from 6 PM CET.

Twitter Suspends Accounts of Torrent Sites

2010-06-13T09:10:00.004-04:00

By ra3orblade, TechFreqNews, June 13, 2010

The popular micro-blogging service Twitter has had a love/hate relationship with BitTorrent during the first few months of the year.

Early February Twitter TechfreqNews attributed a phishing attack to an unnamed torrent site script, blaming a torrent site developer for intentionally installing backdoors into his code. The backdoor was then allegedly used to steal passwords and hijack Twitter accounts.

A few weeks later Twitter itself called in the help of BitTorrent to optimize the site’s backend. With BitTorrent, Twitter is TechfreqNews.com planning to distribute files faster and more efficiently, saving time and precious resources and improving the scalability of its operation.

It is great to see that Twitter recognizes the value of BitTorrent since many BitTorrent sites also appreciate and use Twitter’s service to communicate with followers. Last week, however, two torrent sites were suspended by Twitter without prior notice.

YourBitTorrent and TorrentSurf both ‘lost’ their accounts and followers. The reason cited by Twitter was ‘abuse’ but no further details were given. The owner of yourBitTorrent told TechfreqNews that he contacted Twitter over a week ago to find out more, but he hasn’t heard back from them yet.

Although it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that the sites have been suspended for copyright related issues, another plausible explanation is that the mass tweets of links to torrent files were seen as a violation of Twitter’s terms of service.

“If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates,” say Twitter, your account could be suspended for spamming. Since both sites were doing just this, this mass posting might have triggered the suspension. If this is indeed the case, other accounts including nearly all popular news feeds are at risk as well.

It seems unlikely that simply being torrent-related makes an account a target for suspension. The account of @EZTV which also lists thousands of torrents, and the highly resourceful @isoHunt and @TechfreqNews are still up and running.

Rapidshare Wins Another Copyright Infringement Case

2010-05-26T06:05:00.004-04:00

By SaM, ExtraTorrent, May 25, 2010

Rapidshare, a German-based file-hosting service, can celebrate another win, now in the US Court. District Court in California investigated the case brought by Perfect 10, an adult entertainment group. Rapidshare noted in its press release that it was just another company’s failed attempt to discredit the largest worldwide one-click-filehost service, and get its business model proved illegal.

Perfect 10 had brought the case to the court arguing that RapidShare was actually offering its users access to any copyrighted work they needed for a monthly fee. It called this an unfair competition for those providers who work honestly, like Perfect 10, and can’t compete with a website of this nature.

Perfect 10 asked to prohibit RapidShare distribute its pictures – a failed attempt that reminds its fruitless fight against Google two years ago. At the time Perfect 10 had tried to forbid the search engine giant to index the company’s photos posted on illegal sites, because it had made and displayed the thumbnails of the photos in the search results.

Now the court made a decision that RapidShare is just a file-hosting service, and therefore can’t be held liable of copyright violation, but only RapidShare’s users can. Moreover, the court also took an entertainment company to task, as it couldn’t even name any place where the claimed content was located on Rapidshare.

It seems like the idea of RapidShare not promoting any violations on copyright, as opposed to other file-hosting services, is gradually catching on. And it is quite a success for the service that it is also recognized in the US. The Rapidshare’s founder says he’s glad to hear the US court in California emphasized the difference between ordinary unauthorized share-hosts and RapidShare.

It was just several weeks ago, when Rapidshare won another case in Germany. At the time the applicants demanded it to react to the copyright works uploading and remove them right away or not to allow upload them at all, thus preventing users from violating the law. Nevertheless, the judge ruled that it isn’t the service, but the users who make the conscious decision to upload content and make it public, and that is the point the US judge seemed to stick to as well.

So, as you can guess, Rapidshare will get on copyright holders nerves for a while.

EFF Seeks Attorneys to Help Alleged Movie Downloaders

2010-05-24T16:47:00.004-04:00

By Eva Galperin, Electronic Frontier Foundation, May 19, 2010

Are you an attorney licensed to practice law in the United States? If you are, EFF needs your help to fight spam-igation.

The U.S. Copyright Group has quietly targeted 50,000 Bit Torrent users for legal action in federal court in Washington DC. The defendants, all Does, are accused of having downloaded independent films such as "Far Cry," "Steam Experiment," and "Uncross the Stars" without authorization. U.S. Copyright Group has recently announced that it will also be targeting unauthorized downloaders of the film "Hurt Locker." News reports suggest that the attorneys bringing these suits are not affiliated with any major entertainment companies, but are instead intent on building a lucrative business model built from collecting settlements from the largest possible set of individual defendants.

The lawsuits proceed similarly to the RIAA lawsuits against unauthorized music downloaders: US Copyright Group files a copyright infringement suit in federal court in Washington DC, against thousands of Does, identified by IP address. Then it presents ISP's with the list of IP's and dates and subpoenas the billing address of the user who had that IP at that date. The ISP's then contact then contact their customers, inform them of the subpoena, and give them an opportunity to file a motion to quash.

In the event that no motion to quash is filed, the ISP gives up the identity of the user. US Copyright Group's attorneys then contact the user and offer a settlement, usually starting at $2500.

EFF is seeking as many attorneys as possible to advise the targets of these lawsuits and, where appropriate, file motions to quash. Respondents' contact information would be added to a website that will act as a resource for the targets of these lawsuits.

If interested, please contact eva@eff.org with your contact information or the contact information for your firm, and the states in which you are licensed to practice law.

More Info:
Electronic Frontier Foundation - EFF is the leading civil liberties group defending your rights in the digital world

Pirate Party safe haven as Pirate Bay sails again

2010-05-19T10:25:00.006-04:00

By Peter Vinthagen Simpson, The Local, May 18, 2010

Swedish file sharing website The Pirate Bay is up and running again hours after an indictment in a Hamburg court persuaded its German ISP to pull the plug, having found a new home with its anti-copyright brethren, the Pirate Party.

"We got tired of Hollywood's cat and mouse game with The Pirate Bay and have decided to offer the site bandwidth ourselves," Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Pirate Party, said in a statement on Tuesday.

"It is time to take the bull by the horns and stand up for what we regard to be a legal activity. When other parties appoint enquiries and avoid accountability the Pirate Party takes responsibility and acts with its own resources for the nation's information security and freedom of expression," Falkvinge said.

The Pirate Party is providing bandwidth for the webpage and search engine of The Pirate Bay while the tracker and torrent files previously listed on the page are located on other servers at undisclosed locations across the world.

"The Pirate Bay is a search engine, and as such is not responsible for the results of a search," Rick Falkvinge argued.

The Pirate Bay meanwhile offered a typically defiant response to continued entertainment industry efforts to curb illegal file sharing through the courts, with a "lolcat" message on its reopened site parodying "yours futiles attempts ats contrllings ours internets (sic)".

The Pirate Bay was closed down late Monday after German internet service provider Cyberbunker decided to comply with a preliminary decision by a Hamburg court under the threat of substantial fines. The Pirate Bay returned to service at around 11am on Tuesday.

The Pirate Party (Piratpartiet) was founded in 2006 and strives to reform laws regarding copyright and patents. The party claimed 7.13 percent of the vote in the 2009 European Parliamentary elections and currently holds two seats.

Four men linked to The Pirate Bay - Carl Lundström, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde - were convicted by Stockholm District Court of being accessories to copyright violations in April 2009. Their appeals court hearing is due to open in September.

******************
Statement from Pirate Party:

Pirate Party delivers bandwidth to Pirate Bay
Pirate Party, May 18, 2010 (translated by Google Translate)

Today, 18 May, the Swedish Pirate Party took over the delivery of bandwidth to file-sharing Pirate Bay page. This after the German ISP Cyber Bunker ordered to disconnect from the Pirate Bay from the Internet.

- We got tired of Hollywood's cat and mouse game with the Pirate Bay and ordered us to offer the bandwidth side, says Rick Falk Vinge, leader of the Pirate Party. It is time to take the bull by the horns and stand up for what we believe is a legitimate activity.

Pirate deliver bandwidth to the home page and search engine The Pirate Bay, while the tracker and the torrent files that previously existed on the page now exists in other places. They never hit by the German decision.

- Pirate Bay is a search page, and as such it is not responsible for the results, says Rick Falk Vinge.

- When other politicians to continue investigations and avoid to be held accountable, "says Rick Falk Vinge, Pirate Party will take place in the responsibility and act with their own resources for the nation's information security and fundamental freedom of expression. We are now the Pirate Bay's ISP.

The proposals to censor out the Pirate Bay from the internet is an attempt to silence one of today's most important opinion makers in matters of civil liberties and rights on the web. It is nothing less than political censorship, and something that any democratic-minded person must reject.

Pirate Party also supports other services with the right to free communication, through the operation of an anonymised Tor server and proxies in support of democracy activists in Iran, among other things.

Links and references:

Pirate Party, to support the Internet:

For more information:

ring Rick Falkvinge (PP), partiledare för Piratpartiet, 0708-303600
ring Anna Troberg (PP), vice partiledare, 0704-676273
se Piratpartiets presswebb, http://press.piratpartiet.se, för pressbilder med mera

Piratpartiet levererar Pirate Bays bandbredd
May 18, 2010 – 11:40 am

Idag, den 18 maj, tog det svenska Piratpartiet över leveransen av bandbredd till fildelningssidan The Pirate Bay. Detta efter att den tyska ISPn Cyberbunker beordrats att koppla bort The Pirate Bay från Internet.

– Vi tröttnade på Hollywoods katt- och råttalek med The Pirate Bay och beslutade oss för att själva erbjuda sidan bandbredd, säger Rick Falkvinge, partiledare för Piratpartiet. Det är dags att ta tjuren vid hornen och stå upp för vad vi anser är en laglig aktivitet.

Piratpartiet levererar bandbredd till hemsidan och sökmotorn The Pirate Bay, medan den tracker och de torrentfiler som tidigare funnits på sidan numera finns på andra ställen. Dessa drabbades heller aldrig av det tyska beslutet.

– Pirate Bay är en söksida, och som sådan är den inte ansvarig för sökresultaten, säger Rick Falkvinge.

– När andra politiker tillsätter utredningar och undviker att hållas till svars, säger Rick Falkvinge, så tar Piratpartiet i stället ansvar och agerar med egna resurser för nationens informationssäkerhet och grundläggande yttrandefrihet. Vi är numera Pirate Bays internetleverantör.

Förslagen att censurera bort The Pirate Bay från internet är ett försök att tysta en av nutidens viktigaste opinionsbildare i frågor som rör medborgerliga friheter och rättigheter på nätet. Det är inget mindre än politisk censur, och något som varje demokratiskt sinnad person måste ta avstånd ifrån.

Piratpartiet stödjer även med andra tjänster rätten till fri kommunikation, genom driften av en anonymiserande Tor-server och proxyservrar till stöd för demokratiaktivister i bland annat Iran.
Länkar och referenser:

Piratpartiets andra tjänster till stöd för internet: http://press.piratpartiet.se/2009/12/18/piratpartiets-julklappar-till-politiska-aktivister-tor-och-piratepad/
För mer information:

ring Rick Falkvinge (PP), partiledare för Piratpartiet, 0708-303600
ring Anna Troberg (PP), vice partiledare, 0704-676273
se Piratpartiets presswebb, http://press.piratpartiet.se, för pressbilder med mera

PLZ LEARN: TPB CANT BE SHUT DOWN

2010-05-18T11:30:00.007-04:00

By Dr LOLCAT, The Pirate Bay Blog, May 18, 2010

LOL!

AS U MITE HAS READ OR NOTICD, PEEPS ONCE AGAIN R TRYIN 2 SHUT US DOWN. DIS WILL NOT SUCCED, LOL. OURS RLY NICE WEBHOST WUZ THREATEND WIF RLY HUGE FINE, SO WE DECIDD 2 MOOV TEH SIET SO DAT THEY DIDNT GOT INTO TROUBLE, LOL. TEH DECISHUN 2 MOOV WUZ TAKEN BY US, TEH PIRATE BAY, LOL.

TEH PIRATE BAY IZ AN UNSINKABLE SHIP. IT WILL SAIL TEH INTERWEBS 4 AS LONG AS WE WANTS IT 2. REMEMBR DAT, K THX.

TPB, ONLY IN IT 4 TEH LULZ SINCE 2003

SUMOTorrent.com Thwarts Hacker Attack

2010-05-17T14:36:00.003-04:00

By Danny Torrentz, Danny Torrentz Blog, May 17, 2010

This morning at about 6:34 AM EST the popular BitTorrent site SUMOTorrent.com was attacked by a hacker, or hackers, that were trying to redirect visitors to a site containing spyware & malware.

Literally within one minute, the SUMOTorrent.com Admins & Moderators began tracking down the malicious script and removing it from the site.

The safety, security, and privacy of SUMOTorrent.com's visitors is of the utmost importance to the SUMO Team.

SUMOTorrent.com is safe, secure, & fully functional!

SUMOTorrent.com - The Fresh Torrent Source!

The Pirate Bay / CyberBunker / MPA Injunction In Full

2010-05-17T00:24:00.003-04:00

By enigmax, TorrentFreak, May 16, 2010

Earlier this week it became apparent that the main Hollywood studios had made good on their threat to take legal action against Pirate Bay bandwidth provider CB3ROB/CyberBunker. At the time, CB3ROB owner Sven Kamphuis told us that he had yet to see the injunction. TorrentFreak has obtained a copy along with an English translation.

Last month the main Hollywood studios approached CyberBunker operator CB3ROB and demanded that they should stop providing The Pirate Bay with bandwidth. Failure to comply would result in the MPA taking legal action against CB3ROB in Germany.

This week we exclusively revealed that Columbia Pictures, Disney Enterprises, Paramount Pictures,Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. had obtained a preliminary injunction against CB3ROB Ltd from the Regional Court of Hamburg.

The injunction, which was granted without an oral hearing, stated that CB3ROB Ltd. & Co. KG and Managing Director Sven Olaf Kamphuis were now prohibited from connecting The Pirate Bay website and its servers to the Internet.

Following requests from news outlets around the world, TorrentFreak has worked to obtain a copy of the injunction which we can now publish (In German). Below follows an English translation.

Pages 1 and 2

Landgericht Hamburg, 10th Civil Chamber

310 O 154/10

Order of May 6th 2010

In the matter of

[Plaintiffs]

1) Columbia Pictures Industries Inc.
2) Disney Enterprises Inc.
3) Paramount Pictures Corporation
4) Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
5) Universal City Studios Productions
6) Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Legal representatives for 1-6 : Anwaltssozietät Boehmert & Boehmert, Meinekestr. 26 D-10719 Berlin, Gz: MPA60057

versus

[Defendants]

1. CB3ROB Ltd. & Co. KG, represented by CB3ROB Ltd., in turn represented by its Managing Director Sven Olaf Kamphuis, Koloniestraße 34, D-13359 Berlin
2. Mr. Sven Olaf Kamphuis, Koloniestraße 34, D-13359 Berlin

In the Regional Court of Hamburg, 10th Civil Chamber, case handled by Judge Steeneck, Judge Wandel and Judge Harders.

Page 3

I. By means of a Preliminary Injunction Order – given the urgency of the matter granted without an oral hearing – the Defendants, on pain of a fine to be fixed by the Court for each case of infringement and, in the event that the fine cannot be enforced, imprisonment or imprisonment of up to 6 months (maximum fine for each case: 250,000 euros; maximum term of imprisonment 2 years, to be levied on the respective managing directors of the General Partner of Defendant 1 and Defendant 2 personally)

Defendants are prohibited from connecting the website “The Pirate Bay” (available in
particular on thepiratebay.org, piratebay.org, piratebay.net, thepiratebay.com, thepirate-bay.net, piratebay.se) and its servers to the Internet, insofar that torrent files are made available on this server which enable Internet users to download the following movies:

The Bounty Hunter (in favor of Plaintiff 1)
Alice in Wonderland (in favor of Plaintiff 2)
Our Family Wedding (in favor of Plaintiff 4)
Green Zone (in favor of Plaintiff 5)
Repo Men (in favor of Plaintiff 5)
Cop Out (in favor of Plaintiff 6)

II. The Defendants bear 86% and Plaintiff 3 bears 14% of the court fees. The Defendants bear the attorney fees of Plaintiffs 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6. Plaintiff 3 bears its own attorney fees.

III. The value of the dispute amounts to 290,000 euros.

Page 4

Grounds:

The order is procedurally founded on §§ 935 et seq., 922 Code of Civil Procedure and the Court’s competence to decide on the case follows the § 32 Code of Civil Procedure. The injunction claims are founded pursuant to §§ 97, 94, 15, 19 et seq. of the Copyright Act. The pain of penalties and fines follow § 890 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

1.

Plaintiffs 1, 2 and 4 to 6 have shown and provided evidence, also upon consideration of the pre-trial arguments put forward by the Defendants, for all facts required for granting the injunction against the Defendants pursuant to § 97 (1) of the Copyright Act.

Upon presentation of affidavits Plaintiffs have provided evidence that they own all exploitation rights to the following movies:

Plaintiff 1 – “The Bounty Hunter”
Plaintiff 2 – “Alice in Wonderland”
Plaintiff 4 – “Our Family Wedding”
Plaintiff 5 – “Green Zone”
Plaintiff 5 – “Repo Men”
Plaintiff 6 – “Cop Out“

Page 5

Plaintiffs also provided evidence that files containing these movies have been made available on The Pirate Bay website [IP Address: 194.71.107.15] and could be downloaded. This constitutes an act of making available of the movies to the public under §§ 15, 19a, 94 et seq. Copyright Act, an act reserved by the Plaintiffs. As this occurred without the authorization of the Plaintiffs, such acts were unlawful.

Defendants are liable for these infringements pursuant to the “Störerhaftung” principle. Following warning notices from the Plaintiffs, they were able and could be reasonably expected to prevent the accessibility of the websites containing the copyright infringing content. Defendants cannot rely upon the liability privileges of Article 8 of the Tele Media Act because this provision is not applicable to injunction claims.

The unlawful use attributable to the Defendants caused the risk of further infringements. To overcome this risk, Defendants – apart from discontinuing such use – had been required to submit an implicit, serious and timely unlimited cease-and-desist declaration under penalty of law. Defendants did not submit such declaration upon Plaintiffs’ request.

There are sufficient grounds for the injunction order. This follows from the danger or risk of repetition. Besides, Plaintiffs themselves have handled the matter for the relevant film works quickly enough.

Page 6

2.
The decision on costs is founded on §§ 91 (1), 92 (2) No.1, 269 (3) s.1 Code on Civil Procedure. The value of the dispute has been estimated pursuant to § 53 Act on Court Fees, § 3 Code on Civil Procedure.

— End of translation —

Speaking with TorrentFreak earlier in the week, CB3ROB’s Sven Kamphuis said that he had yet to receive a copy of the injunction, but maintained that his company’s standpoint on the situation is very clear and remains unchanged.

“In fact, those standpoints have been re-assured by the ‘Rapidshare verdict‘ (also in Germany) a couple of weeks ago,” Kamphuis told us.

“The Pirate Bay is a search engine for torrent files, BitTorrent is a universal file distribution protocol, just like any other means of transporting files over a network. The Pirate Bay does not ‘facilitate’ copyright infringement, nor do we. The PirateBay ‘facilitates’ transporting files over a network, and we facilitate Internet connectivity,” he continued.

“If anyone is to blame for seeders not having a distribution license for any potential copyrighted content, it’s the copyright industry’s management. (can you spell ‘unfair competition’, o hai, meet the European Commission),” he added.

Kamphuis further noted that shutting down The Pirate Bay would constitute censorship, an act which he says is illegal under German law and would infringe upon the rights of millions of legitimate users.

Since only a handful of movies are listed in the injunction, removing torrents connected to those could achieve Hollywood’s requirements, but Kamphuis says that act is out of his control.

“Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for removing MPA content, as it’s crap anyway, and gives free promotion to criminal cartels that corrupt our governments, engage in unfair competition, and act [with hostility] against ISPs [which] is not the way to go, but as we believe in an open Internet, we’ll even let them stay around for a while,” he adds.

“As for ‘removing (their not so very specific list of) torrents’, we have no influence on that anyway. They can sort that one out in court against Reservella, as they will, within a few months.”

Kamphuis told us that getting an injunction isn’t too difficult and that his company will consider getting a few of their own, such as one which forbids Disney from sending information packets over their infrastructure.

At this point it remains unclear if CB3ROB have officially received a copy of the injunction but in any event, The Pirate Bay remains fully operational to this day.

Update: CB3ROB have received the injunction.

“We will continue the fight in a normal court procedure, as of course, we cannot agree to this as it undermines the entire internet industry’s business model,” Kamphuis told TorrentFreak.

Pirate Bay ISP hit with German injunction; must stop hosting

2010-05-16T18:17:00.001-04:00

By Nate Anderson, ars technica, May 13, 2010

Major movie studios have won yet another round against The Pirate Bay, this time cutting off one of the site's chief ISPs, Cyberbunker.

The district court in Hamburg, Germany has issued an injunction against Cyberbunker and its owner, Sven Olaf Kamphuis, demanding that he cut off service to The Pirate Bay. Failure to do so will result in massive fines of €250,000 per act of online infringement, or up to two years in prison.

The Motion Picture Association, the international version of the MPAA, requested the injunction and a judge concluded that Cyberbunker did not qualify for the "safe harbors" found in EU law, given that the hosting service had been notified about copyrighted movies listed on The Pirate Bay.

Cyberbunker is run by CB3ROB Data Services, a Berlin company. The company's website hosts prominent links to the Dutch and German Pirate Parties, along with "untraceable transit" and "privacy and diplomacy guaranteed."

"We go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in the world," reads the site. "The total solution provider in a hostile world!"

The Pirate Bay has proved elusive, shuffling its servers, ownership, and ISPs around the world in an effort to avoid the studios. Pirate Bay admin Fredrik Neij works for DCP Networks, a Swedish company that provides "a wide range of proxy services, tunneling services, DNS hosting and colocation," according to Neij. DCP has hosted numerous BitTorrent sites over the years and has tremendous experience at keeping them going.

Over the last couple of years, however, the studios have managed to secure the conviction of four key Pirate Bay defendants in a Swedish court, convinced several European judges to censor the site, and obtained injunctions against Pirate Bay hosts.

Despite it all, the site remains accessible, though the MPA promises that "litigation is continuing against other facilitators in Sweden who are hosting trackers."

'Hurt Locker' producers follow RIAA footsteps

2010-05-16T10:47:00.001-04:00

By Greg Sandoval, CNET News, May 12, 2010

The movie folks have long quietly mocked the music industry's attempt to protect their copyrights by suing fans. To them, the strategy--abandoned by the recording sector over a year ago--was a fantastic public relations flub that the film industry largely avoided. Apparently, the producers of the critically acclaimed film "The Hurt Locker" didn't get that memo.

The Hollywood Reporter, a trade publication for the film and TV sectors, reported Wednesday that Voltage Pictures, the producers of the Oscar-winning film, are on the verge of filing possibly tens of thousands of lawsuits against people who downloaded pirated copies of the movie.

Thomas Dunlap, of the U.S. Copyright Group, a law firm working on behalf of Voltage, told the Reporter that the complaints should be filed this week.

Representatives from Voltage and the Copyright Group were not immediately to comment for this story.

It's not difficult to guess why Voltage managers are so fired up. They won an Academy Award but only pocketed $16 million in the United States. According to the Reporter, the film leaked on to the Web more than five months before the U.S. release.

One thing must be made very clear, the Motion Picture Association of America is not part of this campaign. That may be another reason the producers may feel the need to file the suits. The indie movie wasn't made by any of the big studios and that means it doesn't have the MPAA helping to prevent leaks or lean on Internet service providers to help thwart file sharing. Producers must pursue their own antipiracy strategy.

It's probably frustrating for the producers to have earned so little from a movie that generated so much critical praise. How much piracy can be blamed for that isn't clear. One question that hasn't been answered is whether or not the producers of the film will recoup any losses after paying legal fees and other costs.

Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET.

MPAA Worries About Pirating U.S. Soldiers in Iraq

2010-05-15T17:18:00.003-04:00

By Ernesto, TorrentFreak, May 15, 2010

While U.S. men and women put their lives at risk in Iraq, the MPAA has queried the military about the pirating habits of the soldiers stationed there. A declassified document from United States Central Command confirms that the MPAA is fighting a war of its own in the Middle East, one against copyright infringing soldiers.

The declassified CENTCOM document (full pdf)

It is no secret that the MPAA is involved in an ongoing battle against copyright infringers in the United States. Tens of thousands of copyright notices are sent out each year informing illegal file-sharers that they are breaking the law.

Less known are the movie industry’s efforts to clamp down on copyright infringers who are defending their country’s interests on foreign soil. Because the availability of legal movies and TV-shows is limited in countries such as Iraq, soldiers sometimes use BitTorrent to get their fix, or buy pirated DVDs from local sellers.

The MPAA is not happy with these defiant soldiers. A declassified document from the United States Central Command shows that, a few years ago, the MPAA asked the military what they do to prevent soldiers from accessing pirated DVDs in Iraq.

One of the questions posed by the MPAA is whether they have banned U.S. troops from going to stores that sell pirated DVDs. The Central Command answered this question negatively, as it would hurt the business of Iraqi salesmen.

“No….banning our troops from visiting these shops would have the unwelcome secondary effect of harming Iraqi entrepreneurs selling legitimate goods.” They add that there is nothing they can do about DVDs that are being sold on Iraqi property because these stores fall under Iraqi law.

The document does state, however, that selling pirated DVDs on US bases is not permitted. It further says that piracy could be reduced by giving soldiers access to legal forms of entertainment.

“U.S. forces have had a long-standing, positive relationship with the entertainment industry. Working to continue this relationship, including the provision of popular entertainment like first-run movies, concerts and other events will help to curtail the demand for pirated media,” it states.

Pirated DVDs are not the only worry for the MPAA as more recently military personnel have also been using BitTorrent to access U.S. entertainment on foreign bases. A military insider told TorrentFreak that they see no other option than to ‘pirate’, as the entertainment industry gives them little opportunity to enjoy digital media legally.

“We have sent letters to the RIAA and the MPAA repeatedly letting them know that our downloads are a direct representation of their failure to allow us to be good consumers as others in the US can be,” our military insider explained.

Instead of holding out a helping hand to deployed soldiers, the entertainment industries continue to treat them as criminals. On a daily basis, the MPAA and RIAA send copyright notices to military personnel via their base ISPs. In turn, the personnel are threatened with account suspension and in serious cases, disconnection.

At the same time Hollywood continues to exploit military conflicts with hit shows like The Pacific and Oscar-winning movies such as The Hurt Locker. Ironically, The Hurt Locker centers around a friendship between a heroic soldier and a young Iraqi boy who sells pirated DVDs at a U.S. base.

KickassTorrents vs. Facebook

2010-05-14T19:57:00.003-04:00

KickassTorrents.com, May 13, 2010

As some of you already read on TorrentFreak, our official Facebook account was removed yesterday.

We are really shocked by this fact and the only thing that we want to know is – why?

Facebook was always a technically inspiring website. It is one of the best websites out there and it really deserves to be one of the best. Still this decision was a surprise for us! After the registration we contacted them for a special address and we received it, and then suddenly we are removed from the network. If we violated any rule than how come that this was not discovered immediately after we received a personal account. Our Facebook was a place for our fans and supporters not even close to some legal issues. Anyway people at Facebook don’t want to answer, so maybe a good buzz around this story will help to get some answers.

So we want all our fans and supporters to spread the word, re-tweet this post or the news from TorrentFreak and dig the story on Digg.

SUMOTorrent: The New BitTorrent Juggernaut?

2010-05-14T19:47:00.000-04:00

In just a few months SUMOtorrent managed to grow from 0 to 350,000 visitors a day, which makes it one of the most widely used BitTorrent sites. Impressive statistics but how did they accomplish this, and what are their plans for the future? Let’s find out.
by Ernesto, TorrentFreak, November 08, 2007

SUMOtorrent is currently ranked 1,052 on Alexa, which means that they are close to entering the list of 1000 most visited websites on the Internet. In addition, SUMOtorrent is running a much needed – as well as one of the biggest, BitTorrent trackers.

This is pretty exceptional if you take into account that the site only had a dozen visitors 6 months ago when it just started.

We are glad that the administrator of SUMOtorrent agreed to answer some of our questions, so we can learn a bit more about his success story.

TorrentFreak: How many visitors does SUMOTorrent have at the moment?

SUMO: SUMOTorrent is now getting about 350 000 daily unique visitors, while SUMOTracker is now tracking 2 million peers, and is probably the largest public BitTorrent tracker hosted on a single server! We recently launched a second public tracker that we hope will be used as much by BitTorrent users as the main tracker.

TorrentFreak: What did you do to grow this fast?

SUMO: I believe the reason why we grew so fast is experience, ideas and support of countless people!

TorrentFreak: So, with all the traffic you’re getting you must be driving a really expensive sports car now right?

SUMO: I don’t have a car but I advise you all to drive safely, put your safety belt on and respect speed limits.

Many webmasters do not communicate about money and torrents. Truth is that, just like any other popular site with high traffic, torrents sites make an income with 4 zeros, SUMOTorrent included. However, we’re not rich: at the end of the month, with all our expenses (hosting of 6 servers for SUMOTorrent/SUMOTracker), developers, partners, backup servers, services… we have actually just enough cash to purchase new servers next month. Our partners could tell you that we often ask them for a delay to pay them every month :p

We also support various sites and donate to them when we have some extra cash (Filesoup, IndianMP3 …)

TorrentFreak: Are you running the site on your own or do you have a team of moderators helping you out?

SUMO: We are running the site on our own and looking for moderators to help us removing the spam and fake torrents that get through our filters.

TorrentFreak: SUMOTorrent is one of the few BitTorrent sites that has their own tracker, do you think we need more public BitTorrent trackers?

SUMO: Of course we do need more public BitTorrent trackers! Many BitTorrent sites do not have their own tracker, and will tell you that it is to avoid legal troubles. I believe this is only an excuse. When you come to think about it, a public BitTorrent tracker generates a lot of traffic that cannot be monetized as it is not seen by anybody. SUMOTracker costs about $500 per month and we feel like this money is well spent as we are doing it for the community!

TorrentFreak: The Pirate Bay announced that they are working on a new BitTorrent protocol, what is your take on this?

SUMO: I have quite bad memories of the Suprnova/Exeem project, but I believe the SecureP2P project launched by PirateBay will be a great improvement to BitTorrent as it is based on experience of what is not working good in the current protocol and trying to improve it. They have received dozens of suggestions from users all around the world, and I wish the best to them in this enterprise.

We have contacted the head of this project and will provide them with any resources they might need to achieve it. SUMOTorrent will of course support the new protocol, promote it to our users and provide additional trackers on SUMOTracker for the new tracker protocol.

TorrentFreak: Can you tell us something about features you want to add to SUMOTorrent in the future?

SUMO: We will add more languages and buy new servers to scale site architecture with our growth. We will also work on content partnerships, and invite any filmmaker, music group or artist who is interested in sponsoring of his production and free distribution of his content through our site to contact us.

Just like PirateBay and Mininova, we would like to promote groups and help artists getting known through the power of peer-to-peer!

TorrentFreak: Do you have a message for all the anti-piracy organizations out there?

SUMO: Yes, take a look at the 100 first sites according to Alexa ranking! P2P and BitTorrent websites are here to stay, and they are the major means of online content distribution nowadays. This is a fact. Instead of trying to block the highway that leads to your customers, you should put your strategy into question. When the time will come that P2P sites will get better organized (and this time is soon, you know it) and ran by smart structures instead of simple individuals, you will understand you have missed the last opportunity you had to jump on the bandwagon of the digital revolution!

Meanwhile for all torrent users, we are happy to give you a free drive to where you want on http://www.sumotorrent.com :)

TorrentFreak: Thanks SUMO and good luck in the future!

About Us

2010-05-14T19:40:00.000-04:00

Danny Torrentz is an educational blog about BitTorrent technology and the BitTorrent community.

Contact Danny Torrentz

2010-05-14T19:31:00.000-04:00

dannytorrentz [at] gmail [dot] com

Torrent Pond Logo

2010-05-14T19:30:00.000-04:00

SUMOTorrent.com Logos

2010-05-14T19:25:00.004-04:00