“Threatening” to splatter its website across 256 IP addresses which are all part of its own IP range
Dutch language news article:
http://webwereld.nl/nieuws/110649/the-pirate-bay-dreigt-met-256-eigen-ip-adressen.html
Previously:
Site Blocking Measures Appear To Work: The Pirate Bay Changes Its IP Address (But Still In The Same Range)
http://vrritti.com/2012/05/18/site-blocking-measures-appear-to-work-the-pirate-bay-changes-its-ip-address-but-still-in-the-same-range/
Findings from BEREC’s and the European Commission’s joint investigation
Commissioner Neelie Kroes:
BEREC has today provided the data I was waiting for. For most Europeans, their Internet access works well most of the time. But these findings show the need for more regulatory certainty and that there are enough problems to warrant strong and targeted action to safeguard consumers.
For the first time we know that at least 20%, and potentially up to half of EU mobile broadband users have contracts that allow their Internet service provider (ISP) to restrict services like VOIP (e.g. Skype) or peer-to-peer file sharing.
Around 20% of fixed operators (spread across virtually all EU member states) apply restrictions such as to limit peer-to-peer volumes at peak times. This can affect up to 95% of users in a country.
At the same time, in nearly all Member States, most if not all ISPs offer fixed and mobile Internet access services that are not subject to such restrictions. According to the BEREC figures 85% of all fixed ISPs and 76% of all mobile ISPs propose at least one unrestricted offer. So the market is generally providing choice, but in some countries the choices are quite limited in some EU countries.
But are customers really empowered to choose well? Do they realise what they are signing up for? I didn’t read all the pages in my mobile contract and I bet you didn’t either! I believe we all need more transparent information.
Given that BEREC’s findings highlight a problem of effective consumer choice, I will prepare recommendations to generate more real choices and end the net neutrality waiting game in Europe.
First, consumers need clear information on actual, real-life broadband speeds. Not just the speed at 3 am, but the speed at peak times. The upload as well as the download speed. The minimum speed, if applicable. And the speed you’ll get when you’re also watching IPTV as part of your triple-play bundle, or downloading a video on demand via a premium “managed” service. Plus, you should know what those advertised speeds typically allow you to do online
Second, consumers also need clear information on the limits of what they are paying for. Clear, quantified data ceilings are much better than vague “fair use” policies that leave too much discretion to Internet Service Providers (ISPs). They allow low-volume users to look for deals that suit them. And they incentivise ISPs to price data volumes in ways that reflect costs, and so support investment in modernising networks as traditional voice revenues decline.
Third, consumers also need to know if they are getting Champagne or lesser sparkling wine. If it is not full Internet, it shouldn’t be marketed as such; perhaps it shouldn’t be marketed as “Internet” at all, at least not without any upfront qualification. Regulators should have that kind of control over how ISPs market the service.
More:
http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/neelie-kroes/netneutrality/
See also:
Study: A view of traffic management and other practices resulting in restrictions to the open Internet in Europe
http://erg.eu.int/doc/consult/bor_12_30_tm-i_snapshot.pdf
Because free websites + free attractive content makes for some good advertising opportunities. No matter whether those websites – or the content they’re providing access to - are legal or illegal.
That’s why there are so many who want the media and the public to believe that website blocking does not work.
In order to make that point, they start by arguing that website blocking is a useless remedy, since it does not address all possible instances of content piracy, and circumvention may still be possible.
But that’s beside the point. Big Content may not even be looking to eradicate 100% the piracy problem, much like Big Data is not looking to eradicate 100% of the botnet, spam, malware, ‘bad’ apps or illegal advertising problem.
It’s about limiting damages…limiting costs due to piracy or other illegal activities online. Technical solutions for online illegallity need to be able to at least achieve that goal.
And it turns out that even badly implemented site blocking remedies are able to achieve that, much like partially successful spam filtering campaigns.
Now imagine if ISPs and other online service providers would be able to make money by fighting piracy. Maybe that would cause even better technological remedies to pop up all of a sudden, not only addressing a significant part of the problem, but perhaps even the majority of it.
Only time will tell…
For the time being we’ll have to keep up with large quantities of propaganda that aims to leave attractive online clusters of (illegal) content intact for as much and as long as possible…
The website blocking measures in the UK are now seriously affecting The Pirate Bay’s popularity.
Not too long ago, the Pirate Bay was the 39th most popular website in the UK. Right now the site’s popularity is decreasing and even after only a few weeks of blocking by a limited number of ISPs, the effect is already quite noticeable:
http://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries;2/GB
Similar effects in have been observed in The Netherlands too, although only a few ISPs are blocking the site in that country as most of them have refused to do so, regardless of relevant legal verdicts. That situation is expected to change sometime next week.
Previously:
High Court has ruled that several UK ISPs including Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media must block The Pirate Bay website
http://vrritti.com/2012/04/30/high-court-has-ruled-that-several-uk-isps-including-sky-everything-everywhere-talktalk-o2-and-virgin-media-must-block-the-pirate-bay-website/
Pirate Bay’s Alexa Rank For UK And NL Continues To Drop After Blocking Measures
http://vrritti.com/2012/05/12/pirate-bays-alexa-rank-for-uk-and-nl-continues-to-drop-after-blocking-measures/
United States law enforcement authorities have confirmed they are investigating images of child abuse unearthed from Kim Dotcom’s Megaupload servers.
The material was discovered during FBI examination of the contents of the internet millionaire’s cloud storage system, seized in the global takedown of the “Mega Conspiracy” that included police raids at Dotcom’s Auckland mansion in January.
A spokesman from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, Peter Carr, said there was an ongoing investigation into the images of child pornography found on the servers but would make no further comment.
More:
http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/child-porn-found-megaupload-servers-fbi-4901637
Centropy member Matthew Thompson is sharing with TorrentFreak readers an excerpt from his forthcoming book, This is the Scene.
Things were great for me as a pirate; I had access to whatever I wanted and was a member of some of the biggest groups that have ever existed. Then Operation Fastlink happened.
Operation Fastlink was a multi-year, joint-operation run by the United States Department of Justice and the Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Section of INTERPOL designed to take out the groups Fairlight, Kalisto, Echelon, ProjectX, and Class.
Matthew is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise funding to continue work on his book.
The campaign page and accompanying video are available here.
Much more:
http://torrentfreak.com/i-was-a-member-of-centropy-the-worlds-leading-movie-piracy-group-120526/
In Europe for example, BitTorrent traffic still accounts for 20.32% of all Internet traffic during peak hours, while eDonkey adds another 9.39% to the P2P total. During the last 18 months the share of P2P traffic nearly quadrupled, and this increase is even larger in absolute traffic.
According to Sandvine, the absence of legal alternatives is one of the reasons for these high P2P traffic shares.
“We see higher levels of P2P filesharing than in many other regions, at least partially due to geographical licensing challenges that restrict the availability of legitimate Real-Time Entertainment services.”
In the U.S. on the other hand, the availability of legal content has flourished in recent years. To illustrate this, Sandvine reports that one-third (32.9%) of all downstream traffic during peak hours is now generated by Netflix subscribers. In addition, Hulu has doubled its share in the last year to 1.8%.
The above seems to suggest that due to these alternatives, people are less inclined to pirate.
The MPAA is slowly starting to realize that consumers are not all out to steal content, they simply want to consume.
“I believe it’s critical to find solutions to the challenges facing both these consumers and the people who create the content. Because at the end of the day, this discussion is about consumers and by consumers who love TV shows and movies. They want to be able to access them quickly and safely online,” the MPAA’s Marc Miller wrote yesterday.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-traffic-booms-due-to-licensing-challenges-120524/
S3 file share allows you to share large files upload/view pictures videos docs audio, share with family friends work colleges give users bucket access, backup websites filter images and lots more.
In recent weeks alarm bells sounded at Poland’s Computer Emergency Response Team when it was discovered that an unknown entity is sending massive amounts of forged data packets and posing a threat to BitTorrent users worldwide. A detailed analysis reveals that anti-piracy outfits may be initiating these attacks to prevent movies from being downloaded. According to security experts, the legality of these attacks is doubtful.
The security researchers, who say these poisoning attacks are happening on a massive scale, observe that they are targeted at specific BitTorrent swarms sharing Russian movie releases.
One of the likely explanations for these poisoning attacks is that anti-piracy outfits are utilizing them to “protect” their clients’ movies. For example, these outfits could overload BitTorrent swarms with corrupt data or “disconnect” messages while masquerading as legitimate downloaders.
This is exactly what the Microsoft funded startup Pirate Pay appears to be doing although other companies may also use similar methods. A company called ICM is currently listed as “protecting” the Russian film that was the subject of the attacks identified by CERT.
The security researchers don’t make any conclusive claims about the origins of the attacks, but they do note that anti-piracy groups are a possible source.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-outfits-launch-attack-on-bittorrent-protocol-120519/
Advocate General Huydecoper of the Dutch Supreme Court proposes to submit prejudicial questions to the European Court of Justice about private copying levies. If the Supreme Court agrees with this, the ECJ will decide if the private copying exception is in compliance with the Berne three-step test, which is also laid down in the European Copyright Directive (2001/29/EG).
The European Copyright Directive provides a limited list of allowed limitations and exceptions for the use of copyrighted works without consent of the copyright holder. Member states can choose which limitations and exceptions they want to implement in their national laws. The three-step test sets boundaries to those limitations and exceptions. Limitations and exceptions are only allowed in (1) certain special cases (2) that do not conflict with the normal exploitation of the work and (3) do not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the right holder.
In the underlying case, the question arises whether only copies from works obtained from ‘authorized’ sources should be taken into account in the calculation of the private copying levy, or also copies from works obtained from ‘illegal’ sources. If works from illegal sources should be taken into account, the private copying levy will be higher. The Advocate General states that in order to answer these questions, it is necessary to submit a few prejudicial questions to the ECJ.
Continuing a recent trend, The Pirate Bay and other large BitTorrent sites are now being blocked by Internet providers in India. Visitors who try to access the sites are redirected to a banner which informs them that the Department of Telecommunications ordered a blackout. Torrent sites are not the only target, as the blockade also censors the video sharing site Vimeo
http://torrentfreak.com/india-orders-blackout-of-vimeo-the-pirate-bay-and-more-120504/
Media law group Wiggin has released its latest annual 2012 Digital Entertainment Survey, which conducted an online survey of 2,500 UK respondents (“representative of the national demographic“) and discovered how 53% agreed that the internet “requires more regulation” to prevent broadband ISP customers from “downloading unauthorised content“. But only a minority were found to engage in internet piracy.
Furthermore 64% agreed or strongly agreed that British law should be applied online in the same way as it is offline, though there were huge differences between how men and women voted. On average 44% of men agreed with the above position, which rises to 60% for women. Elsewhere almost six in ten consumers (58%) believe that internet content should be regulated in the same way as TV programmes.
However, despite the calls for more regulation, just 6% of people admitted to making “Regular” downloads of unauthorised / pirated films or tv progs via linking and hosting sites. This falls to 5% for file sharing (P2P) sites and it’s an almost identical situation for music content too.
Oh no, please don’t censor pornography and extremism!
“Internet censorship is growing in scope and becoming easier. Yet it never has the effect desired. It simply turns criminals into heroes.”
Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group
ISPreview: ”ISPs do not have any real control over internet content that exists on remote servers (i.e. the internet), thus any blocks are incredibly easy to circumvent”
Which is exactly why ISPs use blacklists and blocklists, block spam, malware, child abuse images, botnets and DOS attacks and put people in walled gardens…
Previously:
High Court has ruled that several UK ISPs including Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media must block The Pirate Bay website
http://vrritti.com/2012/04/30/high-court-has-ruled-that-several-uk-isps-including-sky-everything-everywhere-talktalk-o2-and-virgin-media-must-block-the-pirate-bay-website/
Dropbox has painted a giant target on its back by offering one simple, additional feature to its file-storage service: a link-generating button to enable public file-sharing.
The trouble is that nothing seems to differentiates Dropbox from any other file-sharing website, including troubled Megaupload.
Much more:
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/dropbox-adds-link-file-sharing-welcome-to-the-megaupload-club/75009
Last century filesharing was a fringe hobby, only for geeks who were lucky enough to own a computer that could dial into the World Wide Web. How different is that today, where filesharing has become daily routine for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. In just a few years swapping files has become mainstream. Time to take a step back and see how it all came about.
This week, file-hosting service RapidShare published an anti-piracy manifesto with guidelines on how cyberlocker and cloud hosting sites should conduct their business going forward. But the proposals from the Swiss-based service, which go far beyond their requirements under the law, received a lukewarm reception from rightsholders who say they don’t go far enough. RapidShare believes that they do, and that rightsholders should focus on sites that deliberately generate revenue from infringement.
http://torrentfreak.com/rapidshare-overtures-snubbed-must-do-better-say-labels-120421/
Not really surprising considering the fact that some friends of these pirates do not particularly like intellectuals
Take the case of Hans Magnus Enzensberger, an award-winning 82-year-old essayist, poet and author, who has been at the forefront of many German political movements in recent decades.
“Political? No, politically there’s nothing there,” he “growled over the telephone,” in his interview with Der Spiegel. “And certainly nothing revolutionary. It’s actually surprisingly bourgeois. Like our grandparents, who were happy when they could get something for free.”
The rather ambitious goal: Create a service that seamlessly pulls up songs streaming from all around the internet
The project, called Anontune and still in its infancy, is designed to pull songs from third-party sources like YouTube and let anonymous users put them into playlists and share them – while keeping the service from being shut down by music industry lawsuits.
Reached by e-mail, one of the creators of Anontune told Wired the project was started by a group of anons who met online six years ago on what was then an underground hacking site. The group, mostly focused at the time on “cracking,” began discussing music, favorite artists and what they would do to fix current music business models.
More:
http://gizmodo.com/5903907/anontune-the-new-social-music-platform-from-anonymous
Can locker sites survive in a world without total freedom to go and share any file of choice?
Under the DMCA, online service providers who promptly respond to takedown requests, terminate the accounts of repeat infringers, and take certain other steps are legally immunized from liability for the infringing actions of their users. In principle, sites that qualify for the safe harbor don’t have to do anything else to police piracy on their network. But RapidShare has chosen to go “above and beyond” what the DMCA requires. It urges other locker sites to do the same.
But the Recording Industry Association of America has a different perspective. “We welcome the fact that RapidShare recognizes that its service is used as an illegal distribution hub for copyrighted material and that it has a shared responsibility to prevent this theft,” an RIAA spokesperson told Ars. “Unfortunately the new measures announced fall short if the goal is indeed to meaningfully and effectively reduce the massive amount of copyright theft occurring on its service.”
See also:
RapidShare, MediaFire distance themselves from MegaUpload
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57416538-93/rapidshare-mediafire-distance-themselves-from-megaupload/
As more users explore the magical world of Pottermore, J.K. Rowling’s site for all things Harry Potter, we are finding out that the EPUB e-book files it sells may be DRM-free, strictly speaking, but are not devoid of rights technology. Instead of encryption-based DRM, Pottermore is using a watermarking scheme that the Dutch vendor Booxtream markets as “social DRM.”
Users can purchase each Harry Potter e-book title once and download it up to eight times, in multiple formats. That’s a real convenience; it’s a “rights locker” scheme reminiscent of UltraViolet for movies. As I mentioned previously, the Kindle and Nook versions have DRM. The EPUB version that I downloaded is not DRM-protected; instead it contains two things: “This book is watermarked and was acquired by user ec107c00b9577436d6354e54cd9da5c9 on 31 March 2012″ on p. 3, and various bits of data inserted invisibly into images and other places inside the book.
This data ought to be easy to remove without trace. The files appeared on torrent sites very shortly after the Pottermore Shop went live. A programmer with middling skills could write code that detects and removes the data; even if the illustrations in the book were a bit damaged, readers wouldn’t care. Such a hack for Booxtream doesn’t exist yet (at least publicly), but the irony is that if this scheme catches on with more authors and publishers, it surely will.
Such a program would be perfectly legal; it would not violate anticircumvention law such as DMCA 1201 in the United States. It would be what I call a “one-click hack,” like the (illegal) DeCSS rippers that hack the weak CSS encryption on DVDs, which the non-tech-savvy can easily use and which is permanent. In other words, it would impose the same level of effort on users as a format conversion tool, such as the free Calibre, which can (among other things) convert EPUB files to MOBI files for Kindles so that users can get DRM-free Harry Potter titles for their Kindles after all.
Furthermore, even though Section 1202 of the DMCA forbids removing “copyright management information” from files, the watermark does not qualify as copyright management information as defined in the law. This means that under U.S. copyright law, the user is free to apply such a hack.
(…)
I fail to understand what behaviors Pottermore is trying to prevent here. Even a plain-language message to purchasers — which involves no technology and costs nothing to implement — would alert them to legal and contractual limitations on use. Instead, the current scheme, with its cryptic message, legalese, and hidden data, doesn’t really alert anyone to anything, let alone prevent anyone from doing anything. At best, it’s a “Gotcha!” for nontechnical users who upload files to places where Pottermore presumably pays Booxtream to look for watermarked files. Those aren’t the users whom Pottermore should be most interested in targeting, and if Booxtream does catch anyone and cause a nastygram to be sent, then backlash will ensue. And isn’t Pottermore trying to prevent backlash in the first place?
Much more:
http://copyrightandtechnology.com/2012/04/08/the-harry-potter-watermarking-experiment/
Judge Allows Strict Interpretation Of Previous Verdicts By Dutch Pirate Party. “Generic Proxy” http://proxy.piratenpartij.nl/ Can Remain Active. More Targeted “Reverse Proxies” Need To Be Taken Down
Dutch language news article:
http://www.nu.nl/internet/2789467/entertainmentindustrie-verliest-van-piratenpartij.html
Court document (Dutch language):
http://www.scribd.com/doc/89843601/Piratenpartij-Brein-Tijdelijke-Voorlopige-Voorziening
Pirate Party Press Release (Dutch language):
http://www.geenstijl.nl/archives/images/piratenpersbericht.html
Previously:
http://vrritti.com/?s=brein
Jay Prabhu, the lawyer representing the U.S. Attorney’s office told the court that if the cost of doing business with MegaUpload has gone up, Carpathia’s added expenses shouldn’t be thrust onto taxpayers. Later, Prabhu made several comments about Carpathia that for the first time in the case suggested someone other than MegaUpload’s managers may bear some responsibility.
Prabhu disputed the notion that the hosting service is just an innocent third party left holding the bag. He attacked the company’s claims that managers were caught unaware by the charges leveled against MegaUpload.
Prabhu outlined how Carpathia had received subpoenas regarding MegaUpload’s alleged copyright violations from the government as well those from civil complaints against MegaUpload. He told the judge that MegaUpload helped Carpathia generate $35 million.
The attorney also said he had reason to believe that Carpathia may be a target for civil litigation. He did not accuse Carpathia of violating any criminal laws and did not identify where a civil complaint might have originated.
A spokeswoman for Carpathia issued a statement saying the company is looking forward to working with the other parties to resolve the issue but did not respond to Prabhu’s statements. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office also declined to comment.
Anyone who may try to accuse Carpathia of having some kind of culpability in any copyright-infringing behavior at MegaUpload is likely taking on a tough case. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was tailor-made for third-party service providers like Carpathia. The act’s Safe Harbor provision is designed to shield bandwidth providers and other service providers from liability for the copyright violations committed by users.
Nonetheless, the relationship between MegaUpload and Carpathia was certainly unique.
MegaUpload put Carpathia on the map. The company was largely unheard of 2009. That was when researchers from the University of Michigan and Arbor Networks reported they had discovered something unusual. In July that year, that 0.6 percent of all Internet traffic for the month was delivered by a little known Web hosting service: Carpathia.
That was equivalent to double the amount of bandwidth consumed by Facebook and nearly half of all of Microsoft’s Web properties, including Bing, Forbes noted in a story from November that year.
The researchers traced the massive traffic wave to a deal Carpathia had struck a year earlier to service MegaUpload and the other sites operated by founder Kim DotCom: Megarotica, Megavideo, Megaclick.
Forbes’ reporter Andy Greenberg wrote then that the sites had “become the digital equivalent of the Somalian coastline in the fight against online piracy.”
See also:
Internet Lawyer David Snead Comments On MegaUpload & Carpathia / Leaseweb Revenue Stats. New “Single Digit” Claim Highly Unlikely
http://vrritti.com/2012/03/28/internet-lawyer-david-snead-comments-on-megaupload-carpathia-leaseweb-revenue-stats-new-single-digit-claim-highly-unlikely/
Federal judge tells MPAA, U.S. government and numerous other parties to continue looking for a solution that all can agree on about what should be done with MegaUpload’s servers.
O’Grady told the parties that unless they wanted to hire their own “special master” to help mediate the talks, then he would send them to a magistrate judge known for his abilities to “bring people together” and hash out agreements.
If you’re rooting for MegaUpload or if you’re one of the people who stored content on the service, then there’s some more good news. O’Grady said he was “sympathetic” with Carpathia’s financial plight and he also seemed dismissive of the government’s argument that Carpathia shouldn’t be allowed to return the information back to MegaUpload.
It wasn’t a big victory but my read of the tea leaves was that the judge is reluctant to make any ruling now that would result in the destruction of the data.
The government’s lawyers told the judge that the company was no babe in the woods. They said that the company generated $35 million from working with MegaUpload and suggested that Carpathia may bare some of the responsibility for the copyright infringement that allegedly occurred at MegaUpload. They told the judge there’s a chance that Carpathia will face a civil suit.
More:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57413693-93/judge-wants-megaupload-user-data-preserved-for-now/
Previously:
Internet Lawyer David Snead Comments On MegaUpload & Carpathia / Leaseweb Revenue Stats. New “Single Digit” Claim Highly Unlikely
http://vrritti.com/2012/03/28/internet-lawyer-david-snead-comments-on-megaupload-carpathia-leaseweb-revenue-stats-new-single-digit-claim-highly-unlikely/
The court ruled that there was no evidence that the 23-year-old had created or administered the website, or had any direct role in copyright infringement.
In the judgment the Court said that the prosecution had not shown “that [the defendant] alone or in concert with others had started the website StudentBay.se, whose domain was registered by another person during the fall of 2007.”
The defendant had previously admitted doing some paid design work on the site but denied being the site’s operator. The District Court agreed, noting that it had “not been established” that the defendant had “administered the website.”
The Court concluded that despite being involved with the website the defendant had not done enough to be found guilty of the crime in question – facilitating copyright infringement of textbooks.
“It’s excellent that there was an acquittal,” said Victoria Westberg, spokeperson for the Young Pirates. “We believe that it’s obvious that no one should be found guilty for only having designed a website and created a logo. It feels good that the District Court shares our view.”
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/student-bay-file-sharing-admin-walks-free-120413/
Which is a bit peculiar since Alexa.com recently did note a significantly lower traffic rank for The Pirate Bay in The Netherlands. And currently The Pirate Bay is still ranked at 40, contrary to the 27th spot it used to enjoy.
Perhaps the findings can be explained due to the differences between visits to the website by ISP subscribers as opposed to the usage of Magnet links by IP addresses of subscribers of the providers which have implemented the website blockade.
Secondly, blocking a website on a domain level can be very different from blocking the ability for an certain range of IP addresses to connect to the IP addresses of servers, trackers or peers on the basis of torrent files or Magnet links (destination or source based blackholing).
Currently only 2 internet providers are blocking access to The Pirate Bay in The Netherlands.
Dutch language report available here:
http://staff.science.uva.nl/~vdham/research/publications/dutchpirate.pdf
Dutch language news article:
http://www.nu.nl/internet/2786675/blokkade-the-pirate-bay-heeft-weinig-effect.html
The courtroom of U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady is expected to be packed with lawyers representing the many parties with some kind of stake in what happens to the billions of files stored on MegaUpload’s 1,100 servers. Expected to appear are attorneys representing consumers, MegaUpload, the six major Hollywood studios, the U.S. government and MegaUpload’s hosting service.
More:
“It is unclear how Quinn Emanuel intends to zealously represent defendants Megaupload Limited and Kim Dotcom while also protecting confidential attorney-client information gained in the course of representing other clients [...] particularly where those clients’ interests are directly opposed to those of the defendants,” the government writes.
But according to the government the conflicts go even deeper, particularly since Quinn Emanuel are now applying for funds seized from Megaupload to be released in order to pay legal fees.
“The possibility of a conflict of interest raised by Quinn Emanuel’s proposed representation of Megaupload Limited and Kim Dotcom is not limited to mere subject matter. The assets seized by the government from defendants may eventually be restored to victims – including possibly the current and former Quinn Emanuel clients listed above – as restitution,” the government adds.
Much more:
http://torrentfreak.com/us-govt-objects-to-megaupload-hiring-top-law-firm-121012/
Ah wait: “7. My examination of Hotfile was not an exhaustive review of the files on Hotfile, nor does it purport to be a representative statistical sample of the uses of Hotfile as a whole.” and “5. My primary task was to explore some examples of the non-infringing use of the Hotfile system. Defendants counsel asked me to study the use of the Hotfile service to store and to distribute or download the types of material described above, that is to say, material which can be licitly copied and distributed.”. For more information about the methodology (which discarded material that was not clearly in the licitly sharable category), see Exhibit 1, pages 1 and 2: http://www.scribd.com/doc/88944463/88927396-Boyle-Hotfile
TorrentFreak has obtained a confidential report where Duke University Law Professor James Boyle presents some revealing facts about the non-infringing use of Hotfile. The document was filed under seal last month and reveals that sharing of non-infringing content is widespread on the cyberlocker.
While the Professor does not assess what percentage of content on Hotfile is infringing, he does note that the two most downloaded files on the site are Open Source software. With 885,583 and 629,783 downloads respectively, the Open Source applications iREB and Sn0wbreeze were most shared, something Boyle believes the court should take into consideration.
“The fact that it is highly likely that the two most commonly downloaded files on Hotfile are open source programs that seem to be licitly shared appears relevant to any assessment the court might make about the current usage of the system,” the Professor writes in his report.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/hotfiles-most-donwloaded-files-are-open-source-software-120411/
Until January, Carpathia Hosting counted Megaupload as a major customer, leasing 1103 servers to the storage locker site. But after the government shut down Megaupload and froze its assets, the servers became an albatross. They contained evidence in a major criminal copyright case, so Carpathia couldn’t just re-format them for other customers. But the government and the MPAA objected to selling them to Megaupload.
The filing did reveal a bit of good news for Carpathia. It had previously reported that storing the servers was costing it $9000 per day. Carpathia says that lease expired on April 6, and the servers have now been transferred to a storage facility. The hosting company says transferring the servers cost $65,000, and that the servers are occupying storage space valued at tens of thousands of dollars per month. The servers have a book value of $1.25 million, so their depreciation is a significant loss to Carpathia, but this is much less than the $9000 per day it had been paying previously.
“If the data is to be maintained, the government or one or all of the other parties seeking access to or making use of the data should bear the burden of maintaining the servers,” Carpathia writes. The firm says it “would be equally content to sell the servers to Mega, reprovision them for use by other customers, or sell them on the secondary market.” But it’s not happy about being forced to bear the costs of storage and depreciation itself.
More:
After the SOPA and PIPA uproar the Internet has become increasingly aware of the US Government’s attempts at meddling with the web. In recent days the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) has moved to the forefront. Critics of the bill point out that it would allow companies to spy on Internet users, and as it’s written CISPA would further allow ISPs to block allegedly infringing transfers and report pirating users to a variety of organizations.
When it comes to legislation involving the Internet, the masses have become quite paranoid. Perhaps rightly so.
More:
http://torrentfreak.com/cispa-bill-lets-isps-spy-on-and-report-pirating-subscribers-120409/
