TorrentFreak Email Update |
- KickassTorrents Taken Down After Copyright Concerns
- Copyright Boss Refuses Debate with Pirate Bay Co-Founder
- Ip Man 2 Movie Piracy Case A Rare Event In China
| KickassTorrents Taken Down After Copyright Concerns Posted: 12 Aug 2010 02:25 AM PDT KickassTorrents, one of the fastest growing and most visited torrent sites on the Internet, has been pulled offline after an inquiry from the Ukrainian authorities. The site's main server was shut down and the site's founder and his team are currently setting up shop outside the country. KickassTorrents is expected to return in a few days, TorrentFreak was told.
Even though the site was only founded last year, it has quickly gown out to be one of the leading BitTorrent sites with millions of visits every month. Hosted in the Ukraine, the site has been free from trouble in its relatively short life, until now that is. Starting two days ago, regular visitors of the torrent site noticed that KickassTorrents was unreachable. Although the site has been down for a few hours in the past due to maintenance, worries started to grow as time went on. In an attempt to find out what was going on, TorrentFreak contacted the site’s founder, who informed us that the Ukrainian authorities were the reason for the prolonged downtime. “Kickasstorrents.com main web server was shut down by the hosting provider after it was contacted by local authorities. We don’t have many details right now but it seems that there was no direct threat or order to shut down the site, just ‘concerns’ about the site’s activities,” the site’s founder told us. “One way or another I’m afraid we must say goodbye to Ukraine and move the servers to other countries,” he added. TorrentFreak was further informed that the site should return in a few days once the site has moved the operation to a new location. KickassTorrents was hosted by Mhost in the Ukraine, who voluntarily shut down the site after the local Government voiced its concerns about the site. The exact nature of the concerns are not known by the founder of KickassTorrents, but he told us that leaving the Ukraine is in the best interest of all parties involved. Thus far many torrent sites have operated peacefully in the Ukraine, but the current events might indicate that times are changing, and not for the better. There is no official statement from the authorities but we assume that the concerns are copyright related. We will post an update if more information becomes available. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
| Copyright Boss Refuses Debate with Pirate Bay Co-Founder Posted: 11 Aug 2010 01:07 PM PDT Werner Müller, boss of the Austrian film and music industry trade association, has canceled his participation in a panel discussion on "Art in the Digital Age" after he learned that Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde was one of his fellow participants. Müller stated that he refuses to sit at a table with a "convicted criminal" who supports "professional theft".
Among the invited panel guests are politicians such as Eva Lichtenberger, who’s a member of the European Parliament for the Green Party, as well as Werner Müller, boss of the Austrian film and music industry trade association. The latter was looking forward to venting his thoughts on the future of entertainment in the digital age, until he found out that a former adversary was also coming to Vienna. “On Friday, I was informed of the requested list of panelists and only then I learned that Peter Sunde, a convicted co-founder of the BitTorrent download portal The Pirate Bay, will participate in this discussion. For this reason, I would like to hereby withdraw my participation,” Werner Müller wrote to the organizers. Although Peter Sunde discontinued his connection to The Pirate Bay a long time ago, and moved on to found the social micropayment startup Flattr, Müller refused to sit at a table with such a defiant voice. The fact that Sunde has different beliefs about copyright is not a problem, Müller said, but he is against inviting convicted criminals to the panel discussion. “I find it a problem that the Greens have invited a criminally convicted co-founder of a file-sharing portal to a debate – a portal that is used by professional thieves to illegally enrich themselves using the creative work of authors – actions that as you noted in the statements, are still ongoing,” Müller wrote. The Green Party, which organized the panel, is obviously disappointed with Müller’s cancellation. Organizer Marco Schreuder, who posted Müller’s cancellation letter in full on his weblog, notes that the time is not yet ripe for this matter to be discussed by the content owners, although the clock is ticking. Peter Sunde on the other hand does not seem to be bothered with one less opponent in the upcoming discussion, and sees it as a small victory instead. “The best win you’ll have is when your enemies don’t even dare to show up, and have a lame excuse like that,” he tweeted yesterday. “The case is not final so no final judgment is made. He’s just afraid of losing face. And he just did anyhow,” Peter added, referring to the fact that Müller ignored that the conviction of Peter and the three others associated with the Pirate Bay will be appealed later this year. Plenty of discussion still to come, but in court. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
| Ip Man 2 Movie Piracy Case A Rare Event In China Posted: 11 Aug 2010 05:46 AM PDT In a very rare event, a Chinese anti-piracy group says it will sue several websites and companies for their involvement in film piracy in the country. As it teams up with the studio behind the recent martial arts hit Ip Man 2, not only will web portals and Internet cafes be sued, but one of China's biggest file-sharing link sites, VeryCD.
In 2008 and 2009 the Chinese authorities did make some moves against several file-sharing sites, although this was mainly due to them being unlicensed or offering ‘horrific’ or pornographic videos. One file-sharing site, VeryCD, China’s biggest eDonkey links site, escaped closure but did receive stern warnings. However, in terms of linking to mainstream copyright movies, it carried on its business as usual. Now, rather than receiving unwanted attention from the authorities, the site has become the target of a very rare event in China. Along with several other sites, VeryCD is now being sued for copyright infringement, specifically for providing links to the recently released martial arts movie, Ip Man 2. During a press conference the China Film Copyright Protection Association (CFCPA) announced that together with Dasheng International Media (DIM), the studio that owns the rights to Ip Man 2, it has filed a lawsuit against VeryCD in the Shanghai No.1 Intermediate People’s Court. President of DIM, An Xiaofen, said that the movie was made available via VeryCD just a week after its release in late April. By May 5th it had been downloaded 10,000,000 times. An Xiaofen said that he expected that around one third of those downloads equate to actual lost sales which meant his company had lost around 100 million yuan ($14.76m). The actual court claim against VeryCD is more modest – 11.85 million yuan ($1.73m) “In the first half of this year 110 Chinese-language films were released in China, but only 13 made money, that means 90% of the films are losing money”, he explained. “In such circumstances, anti-piracy actions are even more important.” After ignoring to requests to cease their activities, the operators of two further websites, 365pub.com and cnnip.com, are also being sued by CFCPA for allegedly providing movies and download services to Internet cafes. Some Internet cafes themselves will also be sued. According to CFCPA, movie piracy on the Internet is rampant in China. It claims that in the 18 to 35 year old bracket, 50.5% watch movies illegally online, each averaging 31.1 movies per year. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
Next week the Green Party in Vienna, Austria, is hosting a 
Of all the major industrialized countries in the world, China stands out as a leader in doing very little about intellectual property infringement. Online piracy is rampant in the country and is quickly becoming a national pastime among its youth.| You are subscribed to email updates from TorrentFreak To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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