TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Are You An Accidental Movie and TV Show Pirate?
- Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
- Lawyer Offers Self Help To Sued BitTorrent Users
- UK Pirate Party’s Guide to the Digital Economy Act
| Are You An Accidental Movie and TV Show Pirate? Posted: 30 Aug 2010 03:32 AM PDT Another day, another anti-piracy campaign. This one, from the MPA and AFACT-backed Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation, is trying a slightly different approach. Instead of accusing people outright of being movie and TV show pirates, it cuts them some slack and treats them like children instead. It seems that some people just don't know they are pirates. The relatively new Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation (IPAF) was created by the Australian movie and TV industries to "promote the value of the industry by raising awareness, understanding and appreciation of intellectual property, and its role and value in society." Members of IPAF include Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), Motion Picture Association (MPA), Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia, Australian Visual Software Distributors Association and various cinema owners and DVD rental outlets such as Blockbuster. Last year IPAF embarked on a campaign to educate Australia’s children on the evils of copyright infringement in an attempt to "motivate a change in attitudes and behavior to reduce public demand for illegal copies of film and television programs." While many anti-piracy groups take a fairly aggressive angle when sending their message, IPAF take a more softly-softly approach. If AFACT is bad cop, IPAF is his gentler, more reasonable-sounding counterpart. Good cop has just launched his new nationwide anti-piracy campaign with the unusual title of ‘Accidental Pirate’. “New research, released just today, revealed that 34% of Aussies see piracy as stealing or theft but then regularly do it by burning, buying or downloading illegal or unauthorised copies of films or TV programs,” explains IPAF. “In other words, 1 in 3 of us do something that we don't agree with. So to describe this disconnection between actions and beliefs, we coined the phrase 'Accidental Pirate'.” Right. So people know piracy is ‘wrong’ but because they still carry on it’s an ‘accident’? That doesn’t seem to fit very well does it? You can see what IPAF are trying to do though, it’s just badly executed. If you’re going to educate people on the premise that they didn’t know that their actions were ‘wrong’ in the first place (so as not to immediately antagonize them), at least don’t patronize them. “There, there, you know it’s wrong but let’s just pretend it was an accident, eh?” Please. So what does the campaign have to say. Well, it’s pretty much standard stuff. The campaign’s homepage is running a Flash questionnaire with five questions that readers have the chance to answer. Getting a question right gets a round of applause from the assembled cinema audience, but getting one wrong gets a big X and a short lesson in copyright. Questions 2, 3 and 5 all involve copying or buying pirated copies of real DVDs and the legalities of that. People don’t ‘accidentally’ believe that pirate DVDs are legal – do they? Questions 1 and 4 involve file-sharing but if the industry IPAF claims to protect would simply get their act together, these questions wouldn’t even be necessary. Question 1: Your favorite TV show has just aired overseas. It won’t be shown here for months. While browsing the web you notice it’s available for download for free. Do you download it? Every time TV-show downloaders in Australia are asked why they do what they do, one of the top answers is always because they are treated like second-class citizens when it comes to release dates. Why do their favorite series take months to appear officially down under? Whatever the reason, it’s a very, very poor one, and no surprise people turn to BitTorrent. Question 4: You’re browsing the Internet and come across a free download site. You notice a movie that’s just hit the cinemas here. Do you download it? If people find those then, yes, they probably would. The movie industry is always very clear – if you see a brand new movie on the Internet it’s illegal, because we (stubbornly) don’t offer this service. This type of piracy could be all but wiped out by offering people a legal alternative at a reasonable price in their own homes. Quiz aside, it’s all pretty much standard stuff. Movie industry people and actors rolled out to make ‘accidental’ pirates feel sorry for the little guy in the film-making world. You can take the questionnaire for yourself. If you get any ‘wrong’ move directly to the back of the class, put you hands on your head and please try to do better in the future. And stop accidentally downloading torrents. The movie industry depends on it. Article from: TorrentFreak. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent Posted: 30 Aug 2010 01:41 AM PDT The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, 'The Expendables' tops the chart this week, followed by 'Salt'. 'Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time' completes the top three.
The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise. RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.
Article from: TorrentFreak. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lawyer Offers Self Help To Sued BitTorrent Users Posted: 29 Aug 2010 12:19 PM PDT In recent months thousands of US BitTorrent users have been sued for allegedly having shared movies such as The Hurt Locker and Far Cry. Because the settlement amount proposed by the copyright holders is less than hiring a defense lawyer, many defendants have not sought legal representation. Acknowledging this injustice, attorney Graham Syfert is now offering a cheap solution to the problem. The U.S. Copyright Group (USCG) has been all over the news in recent months. The lawyer group sued thousands of BitTorrent users who allegedly file-shared motion pictures belonging to their clients, including the Oscar-winning Hurt Locker and more obscure titles such as Far Cry and Call of the Wild. On behalf of the copyright holders, USCG has already sent settlement offers to many affected BitTorrent users. To settle the case the alleged copyright infringers have to pay up to $2,500 or face the risk of higher penalties in a full-blown court case. The problem with this scheme is that defendants have few viable options to defend their rights. Hiring an attorney often costs more than the settlement amount, and ignoring the settlement offer might lead to an even worse outcome. Two months ago the EFF published a list of attorneys that could help advise and possibly represent subpoena targets. Although this is a great pointer for individuals who don’t know where to get decent legal representation, all the listed attorneys still ask hundreds of dollars or more for their services. Attorney Graham Syfert of the Affinity Law Firm is one of the lawyers listed by the EFF, and like the others he has been contacted numerous times by those targeted by USCG. Although Syfert is willing to help them all, for many the costs of hiring an attorney are simply too high. “One of the major problems that people encounter when trying to hire me on these cases, is that a settlement is approximately what an attorney would need to even begin a defense,” Syfert told TorrentFreak. To address this issue, Syfert decided to prepare several documents that allow defendants to represent themselves. The forms for pro se (self help) representation include a Motion to Quash, Motion to Dismiss, Affidavit in Support and a Motion for Protective Support. All forms are fillable and are accompanied with detailed instructions of how they should be used. In preparing the documents, Syfert collaborated with other attorney’s listed on EFF’s website, and he has high hopes that they will be sufficient to dismantle USCG’s ‘pay-up-or-else’ scheme. “My dream would be to have 10,000-20,000 people file all three documents to the lawyers and severely cripple the entire process and show them that you shouldn’t be allowed to join so many defendants,” Syfert informed TorrentFreak. Two of the many defenses listed in the documentsHowever, as is often the case when dealing with lawyers, there is a catch. When first contacting TorrentFreak, Syfert was offering the documents for sale, priced at $99.00. Although that’s still much cheaper than hiring an attorney, we voiced concerns that it looks like another attempt to make a few bucks off the lawsuits. Luckily, these words didn’t go completely unnoticed to Syfert. “I decided to make it $9.99 instead of $99.00, probably for the next 5 days. Still cheaper than a DVD,” he told us after he slashed the price. Defendants can now buy the full package for under 10 bucks. To our best knowledge that is the cheapest solution to counter USCG’s threats thus far. Even at the low price of $9.99, considering the target group of these cases it probably won’t take long for ‘pirated’ versions of these documents to appear on torrent and other file-sharing sites. Those tempted should keep in mind though that sharing copyrighted material without consent can sometimes lead to trouble, but it’s highly probable they know that already. Article from: TorrentFreak. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| UK Pirate Party’s Guide to the Digital Economy Act Posted: 29 Aug 2010 06:10 AM PDT A lot has been written about the UK's controversial Digital Economy Act, which passed in April in the last days of Gordon Brown's government. What there has been a lack of, however, is facts and guides about the Act, an omission which the UK Pirate Party has attempted to solve.
 When the Digital Economy Bill was going through stages, it was rushed through the House of Commons – the elected half of the UK’s Parliament – in a period known as washup, with the only debate session being poorly attended and full of completely inaccurate pro-Bill statements. It eventually passed with most MP’s not voting, despite a 3-line whip on the topic for the then-ruling Labour Party MPs. The Bill passed to become the Digital Economy Act with a narrower margin than many expected given the voting instructions from the party – some had stood up for their conscience and for the facts, risking sanctions from their party. The Act has been broken down by the Pirate Party into five sections: This sort of technical guide would have been even better if made available before the vote. Passed around the Commons bar, it could have helped people who were clearly uncertain of technology or the Bill’s actual contents to make better sense of it. For the regular everyday citizens who are now subject to this law, it’s also beneficial. A major problem with recent legislation worldwide is that it’s often impenetrable to anyone without legal training. The ability to access laws and understand them is key to those working with, and striving to improve them. Meanwhile the Act is still not completed and final. Several UK Government departments, including OFCOM, have been delegated powers and abilities under the Act. There have been consultations (and there may be more) to address parts, and the outcomes of those will make a difference. Many people though, are probably expecting the worst. On this topic, governments around the world have been increasingly disinterested in listening to the concerns of the citizens affected by the Act, while making policy based on the wishes of a few dozen large companies, and their anecdotal ‘evidence‘. Of course, those that the Act was created to target will probably be the only ones not troubled by it, and that also says volumes about the quality of the law, and the futility of such laws worldwide. Not that such facts will stop things. Article from: TorrentFreak. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This week there are four newcomers in the list. The Expendables is the most downloaded movie on BitTorrent this week (now as DVD screener), currently shared by more than 100,000 people.
| You are subscribed to email updates from TorrentFreak To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment