While The Pirate Pay is certainly notorious, it’s always oddly lingered in the mid-table when it comes to real-world file sharing. No longer, though: according to fresh analysis by Torrent Freak, the site has now sailed into the top spot as the world’s most-used file sharing site. More »
You know how some studies on the same topic seem to contradict one another from time to time? Is it good to have a glass of wine each day, or a cup of coffee? Well, here is one for the ages – a new study which was published by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre discovered something that illegal music downloaders have been saying all this while – it does not hurt the music industry. After checking out the browsing habits of over 16,000 Europeans, the research concluded on the contrary, that a positive link existed between online piracy and visits to legal music stores. The bottomline is, music sales will actually benefit from piracy. Sounds strange, doesn’t it?
In the words of the researchers themselves, “It seems that the majority of the music that is consumed illegally by the individuals in our sample would not have been purchased if illegal downloading websites were not available to them.” Not only that, the study also mentioned that music streaming websites like Pandora (P) and Spotify do not cannibalize music purchases, but rather complements it. This is one topic that divides down the middle, and folks can argue till the cows come home. What do you think?
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Spotify Gradually Rolling Out New Social Network Features, Billboard Incorporates YouTube Viewership,
The Pirate Bay will be turning ten this year, quite the ripe old age for any website, much less one that’s been the target of such controversy. In preparation for celebrating that birthday, TorrentFreak went looking for the oldest Pirate Bay torrent they could find, and came across Revolution OS. More »
What once was a haven for illegal downloading is now just an afterthought. After the shutdown of Megaupload last year, it seems users are starting to resort to legal downloading means, according to a study from Carnegie Mellon University. The study suggests that studios saw a boost in digital movie and music sales since the shutdown.
The 18-week study consisted of 12 countries, and revenues from digital sales and rentals for two movie studios were anywhere from 6% to 10% higher than they would have been if Megaupload hadn’t been shut down. Unsurprisingly, the countries that featured the most Megaupload users were the countries that experienced increased usage in legal downloads.
It’s interesting to note that most Megaupload users would think about just switching to a new service to illegally download copyrighted content, but with the movies and music easier to obtain legally, it seems a lot of users have decided to think twice after the Megaupload shutdown and have switched over the legal means.
Countries such as France, Spain, Mexico, and Belgium saw the most growth in legal downloads, while Canada, Australia, and Ireland saw the least impact. The study suggest that the number of users using legal means of obtaining digital content could rise if studios made their content more readily available.
Megaupload shutdown increased legal movie downloads, according to study is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
The website and ecosystem known as The Pirate Bay are known for their involvement in the uploads and downloads of countless files across the internet and the legal ramifications of their involvement with said files – and this week they’ve moved to North Korea. Or so they say they did this month. In fact what they’ve done is to – so they say – set up a ruse to capture the attention of the public so that they public can become more aware of the fact that anyone can tell them a lie.
The Pirate Bay’s announcement about moving their servers to North Korea existed right up on their homepage’s front page. From there they showed a lovely North Korean set of sails on their own branded pirate ship, proceeding to tell the world that North Korea – of all places – invited them to host their servers and become a new beacon of freedom. But it was not to be.
Down on The Pirate Bay’s Facebook page, the team has shown the world that they’re “in it for the lulz”. Speaking for TPB, users Winona, Winnie, and Winston Bay have spoken up about how creating a ruse such as the one they’ve executed this week proves that they “don’t run TPB to make money.” They also call out the RIAA (cleverly re-named MAFIAA in the statement) for being a “profit hungry idiot”.
“We’ve hopefully made clear (once again) that we don’t run TPB to make money. A profit hungry idiot (points at MAFIAA with a retractable baton) doesn’t tell the world that they have partnered with the most hated dictatorship in the world. We can play that stunt though, cause we’re still only in it for the f***** lulz and it doesn’t matter to us if thousands of users disband the ship.” – TPB
Of course the fun didn’t end there, the team continuing by calling out none other than the readers and the users – all of us, that is – for not calling them out when they announced such an absurd notion as moving to North Korea.
“We’ve also learned that many of you need to be more critical. Even towards us. You can’t seriously cheer the “fact” that we moved our servers to bloody North Korea. Applauds to you who told us to f*** off. Always stay critical. Towards everyone!” – TPB
So that pins it, in the end. We now live in a world where we cannot trust any company to speak the truth about their own organization – or it may just be that we’re not going to be able to read anything the team at The Pirate Bay publish from this point forward without a large grain of salt. That sounds reasonable – as does remembering that anyone could make a mistake in this fast-paced online publishing world of ours.
How do you feel about the situation?
Pirate Bay North Korea move slightly exaggerated is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
It looks like The Pirate Bay has set sail for another country, and a country none of us would have expected. North Korea has taken The Pirate Bay in, and has even offered it virtual asylum. It was only last week when The Pirate Bay was forced from its home in Sweden due to the threats the Swedish Pirate Party received from a local anti-piracy group. TPB was then provided shelter in both Norway and Spain.
It turns out that The Pirate Bay was actually in talks with North Korea for a little while. An insider from TPB stated, “We’ve been in talks with them for about two weeks, since they opened access for foreigners to use 3G in the country.” While TPB isn’t exactly situating itself in North Korea, it will be using North Korea’s network to provide its services to the rest of the world.
This comes only a few days after Norway was forced to let go of The Pirate Bay. The pirate party in Norway began receiving threats from local anti-piracy groups to shut down its services, similar to what Sweden’s Pirate Party had to face. By being offered virtual asylum by North Korea, it will be very interesting to see what anti-piracy groups will due in attempt to shut down the site again.
The Pirate Bay, and many others, believe that this is a truly ironic, seeing as the United States is known as a place of freedom and North Korea is known as the opposite. TPB hopes that it will bond with North Korea, and maybe someday convince the government to allow its people to utilizes its full services. This is an interesting turn of events, and we’d love to see how this new relationship will turn out for The Pirate Bay.
[via Torrent Freak]
Pirate Bay flees to North Korea for freedom’s sake is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
The Pirate Bay may have found a new way to keep its servers up and running amidst increasing adversity from European governments and copyright groups. North Korea to the rescue! Except, you know, it’s probably a hoax. More »
By now, you’ve heard enough about the Copyright Alert System to know what it is and, perhaps, how useless it could be. But what the hell will it look like in reality? More »
ISPs in the US are just getting around to enforcing a “six strikes” policy against illegal P2P sharing, but France is now contemplating a crackdown on the streaming and direct downloads of pirated content. Hadopi, the government organization behind the country’s existing “three strikes” law, released a new report that proposes websites take a page from YouTube’s book and actively monitor content by using recognition algorithms and the like to take down things that are presumed illegal. If a site weren’t to cooperate after a round of warnings, it might face penalties including DNS and IP blocking, domain name seizures and even financial repercussions that involve having their accounts with “payment intermediaries” (think PayPal) suspended. As for enforcement of this potential government mandate, the dossier posits that it could lean on internet service providers instead of hosting services, which according to EU law, can’t be forced to conduct widespread surveillance. For now, these suggestions aren’t being made policy, but Hadopi is mulling them over.
[Image credit: keith.bellvay, Flickr]
Filed under: Internet
Via: Ars Technica
Source: Hadopi (1, translated), (2, PDF)
5 internet service providers, including AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and Cablevision launched their “Six Strikes” anti-piracy program this Monday. The program is the latest attempt for ISPs to stop its users from pirating software and media illegally. At the launch of the piracy program, the ISPs kept quiet about the consequences that would ensue if the users reached their 5th or 6th warning, but now they’ve explained their punishments.
AT&T’s methods will focus more on educating its users about online piracy in order to deter them from it. If a user reaches their 5th or 6th warning, AT&T will “demand they take an extra step to review materials on an online portal that will educate them on distribution of copyrighted content online.” Users will have to review the materials before they are able to access other websites. AT&T has said that they will not throttle its users data speeds.
Verizon, however, will throttle its users data speeds. Customers who reach their 5th or 6th warning will have to watch instructional videos about downloading copyright material legally at first, and if they still proceed to pirate, they will have their data speeds reduced to dial-up speeds. The throttle will last 2-3 days. The users will be warned 2 weeks in advance before their speeds are throttled, just in case there is something wrong on Verizon’s side and the users want to dispute the warnings. To appeal the warnings, users will have to pay a $35 fee, which will be returned if the user is granted the appeal.
Comcast, like AT&T, will not cap its users data speeds. If they reach their 5th/6th warning, they will receive constant in-browser alerts about their piracy, and in order to stop the alerts, they will have to call Comcast Security Assurance, who will then lecture them on copyright methods and how to download legal content. Like AT&T, Comcast’s goal is to inform its customers.
Time Warner Cable will not throttle its users data speeds either, but users will receive a lock on their internet browsers if they reach the 5th/6th alert. In order to remove the lock, like Comcast, users will have to contact customer service where they will receive a lecture on copyright methods and legal alternatives to downloading media.
Cablevision didn’t chime in with their consequences, but it seems that Verizon will be the only company that will throttle its users’ data speeds. With Cablevision, you’ll probably receive a lecture as well. So far none of the companies plan on terminating their contracts with their users due to piracy. These details of the consequences for violating the “six strikes” program does make the program seem less intense, compared to when we really didn’t know what they had planned. What do you think of the ISPs’ anti-piracy program?
[via Mashable]
ISPs consequences for abusing Six Strikes program revealed is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
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