TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Pirate Bay Appeal Day 5: Screenshots Prove Nothing
- IMDb Relents And Allows BitTorrent Movie The Tunnel a Listing
- UK ISPs Successfully Resist File-Sharing Data Handover
- ACS:Law’s Anti-Piracy Downfall Sends Hitler Crazy
- The Pirate Bay Appeal Day 4: It’s Fun to Run
| Pirate Bay Appeal Day 5: Screenshots Prove Nothing Posted: 05 Oct 2010 04:28 AM PDT It's Day 5 of The Pirate Bay appeal and in the morning the Court showed video of the previously recorded interrogations of Carl Lundstrom, one of the four defendants. In addition the prosecution brought in simple screenshots as evidence, which painfully exposed their technical incompetence.
In response to a question from prosecutor Håkan Roswall, Lundström admitted that he knew that there was piracy connected with The Pirate Bay, and that he understood that the site is a "file-sharing site, a torrent site". Speaking of the advertising strategy, Lundström took responsibility for the plan believing it was a way the site could pay for itself in the future. He went on to say that he had no idea of any political motivations behind the site and what interested him was the desire of the other defendants to make the biggest BitTorrent site in the world. "And I liked that," Lundström said. "I can understand that," Roswall replied. The prosecution then moved to a discussion about the hardware that Lundström gave to The Pirate Bay. Lundström made clear that he never wanted to become a partner in the site. He was merely ‘interested’ in the project and gave some advice to The Pirate Bay team a few times. Lundström was further questioned by the prosecution about his contacts with the Israeli (Oded Daniel), who handled advertising on The Pirate Bay. Lundström admitted to knowing Oded very well. When movie industry lawyer Monique Wadsted asked Lundström why a 48 year-old businessman hangs out with people from The Pirate Bay, his lawyer jumped in and told his client not to respond. The only ‘fresh’ news thus far today is that the Israeli businessman didn’t show up in court. The court went on to show a video of IFPI lawyer Magnus Mårtensson. The court heard that Mårtensson has been working for the IFPI for 15 years, specializing in anti-piracy work. The IFPI lawyer explained that he worked gathering evidence against The Pirate Bay by downloading various music albums via .torrent files he obtained from the site using Internet Explorer and the Azureus client. Mårtensson's technological ability was called into question by the defense lawyers and he acknowledged that it was difficult for him to answer some technical questions. Furthermore, it quickly became apparent that his evidence consisted only of screenshots. When asked if he had any network equipment logging exactly what was going on 'behind the scenes' of any of his sample downloads, he replied that he didn't. When asked if he verified in any way during the download process that he had any contact with The Pirate Bay's tracker, again the answer was negative. Defendant Gottfrid Svartholm questioned Mårtensson on his evidence gathering techniques. The following questions are particularly interesting as they show that the prosecution has no evidence that the Pirate Bay trackers were actually used.
(TF: It is unbelievable that these simple screenshots were brought in as evidence. In a response, Piratbyran created a screenshot generator that produced similar evidence.) Mårtensson was further asked if he was aware that Google can also act as a torrent search engine. The IFPI lawer seemed to be unaware of that, and he stated that they never had any problems with Google. More later… Article from: TorrentFreak. |
| IMDb Relents And Allows BitTorrent Movie The Tunnel a Listing Posted: 05 Oct 2010 01:44 AM PDT The creators of the BitTorrent-only movie The Tunnel are celebrating today. After being refused an IMDb listing on several occasions, the makers wrote an open letter to the Amazon-owned company which was featured in dozens of news articles. Today, the horror movie, which was funded by people buying individual frames of the production, has been accepted into the IMDb databases.
Their upcoming movie, The Tunnel, which is set for a release later this year, was badly in need of an Internet Movie Database listing. Unfortunately IMDb didn’t want to play ball. From a standing start in June this year, Enzo and Julian had submitted their upcoming horror movie to IMDB on a number of occasions, five to be exact, but to no avail. Despite having backing from Zapruder's Other Films which already have IMDb listings, the Amazon-owned company continually denied The Tunnel a listing. Earlier, Enzo told TorrentFreak that he suspected that it's the movie's BitTorrent-only distribution model which caused this negative reaction from IMDb. So, in a last-ditch attempt to bring the movie listings site onside, the makers of The Tunnel penned an open letter to IMDb last week. That seems to have had the desired effect. “We won!” shouted an excited Enzo to TorrentFreak in an email a few minutes ago. Indeed, as can be seen from the official listing, The Tunnel now has pride of place on IMDb. The Tunnel on IMDb“I would say it’s a small victory for the project, and a bigger win for people power, which is what this project has been about from the start,” Enzo told us. “If the support the project is receiving continues, hopefully it can set a successful precedent.” No reason has yet been given for the sudden turnaround, but those behind the movie are grateful nonetheless. “It may seem like a small thing to IMDb, but it is an indispensable tool for us to be able to market our project effectively and help ensure it's success,” wrote Julian and Enzo in a thank you message to IMDb. “It's also reassuring to see that after 20 years of operation, that you are still able to listen to your user base. We're sure that the online clamour made by our fans and supporters has not been lost on you.” The Tunnel will be released on BitTorrent late 2010. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
| UK ISPs Successfully Resist File-Sharing Data Handover Posted: 04 Oct 2010 02:17 PM PDT In the High Court today, UK ISPs BT and Plusnet refused to hand over subscriber data to lawyers acting for independent record label, Ministry of Sound. Their objections followed the catastrophic subscriber data leak from ACS:Law two weeks ago. The hearing was adjourned until January 2011. The continuation of the hearing between Ministry of Sound Recordings Ltd and ISPs Plusnet / BT went ahead in London's High Court today. Lawyers Gallant Macmillan hoped that the Court would order the ISPs to hand over the identities of hundreds of alleged filesharers so that Ministry of Sound can prise a cash settlement out of them. However, in contrast to their earlier stances, BT and and their subsidiary Plusnet refused to cooperate. Their concerns stemmed from the catastrophric data security breach at lawyers ACS:Law last month. Chief Master Winegarten, who hears most if not all of these types of cases in the UK, granted BT’s request for an adjournment of the hearing. In a statement, Plusnet’s COO Richard Fletcher wrote: “The incident involving the ACS:Law data leak has further damaged people’s confidence in the current process. “We’re pleased that the court has agreed to an adjournment so that our concerns can be examined by the court, this will then act as a precedent/test case for the future. “We want to ensure broadband subscribers are adequately protected so that rights holders can pursue their claims for copyright infringement without causing unnecessary worry to innocent people. We have not simply consented to these orders in the past, we have asked for stricter terms as public concern has risen. The data leak with ACS:Law prompted us to take further action today.” Fletcher’s statement, which echoed that from parent company BT, added that the companies were also seeking a moratorium on outstanding applications and orders. This could potentially be good news for those subscribers whose identities have already been handed over to lawyers in the UK, but are yet to receive letters. The hearing will continue on January 12th 2011. At this stage it seems unlikely that any more court orders of this type will be granted in the meantime, bringing a temporary halt to the ‘Speculative Invoicing’ of alleged file-sharers in the UK. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
| ACS:Law’s Anti-Piracy Downfall Sends Hitler Crazy Posted: 04 Oct 2010 11:10 AM PDT In recent times, people on the Internet have used a scene from the World War II movie Downfall to help relive difficult events in a light-hearted way. A new clip has just surfaced on the subject of the ACS:Law email leaks and as usual features a power-hungry individual hell-bent on intimidation. Traditionalists need not be disappointed though, as Adolf Hitler makes an appearance too. "Hitler finds out" is an ever-evolving Internet meme with a thousand faces. Using a scene from the German movie Downfall where Hitler finds out that the war is effectively lost, creative English subtitles are added to reflect modern day situations. Since late 2008, Hitler has ranted over Windows Vista, his banning from Xbox Live, the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad, and even the decline of Second Life. However, things got very interesting earlier this year when copyright owner Constantin Films started issuing DMCA takedown requests to YouTube in an attempt to remove the parodies from the Internet. Predictably it didn’t take long for Hitler to rant about that too, albeit from the relative safety of video-hosting site, Vimeo. Despite the efforts of Constantin, this celluloid reenactment of Hitler’s final days endured that particular copyright storm with its parody defense, so it’s perhaps fitting that it should reappear to depict the events of a more recent copyright tragedy. Unless you’ve been holidaying on Mars, you will be aware that anti-piracy lawyers ACS:Law had their internal emails spilled all over the web recently. The news travelled quickly around the globe, and even Hitler himself seems to have heard about the event. Believe us, he is not happy. Not happy at all. ACS:Law HitlerizedArticle from: TorrentFreak. |
| The Pirate Bay Appeal Day 4: It’s Fun to Run Posted: 04 Oct 2010 05:42 AM PDT It's Day 4 of The Pirate Bay appeal and almost the entire morning was devoted to the interrogations of Fredrik Neij, one of the four defendants and the only one being asked to answer additional questions. Fredrik talked about how he got involved in The Pirate Bay and what his motivations were to work on the site.
Roswall further detailed why the prosecution thinks the defendants are complicit in the copyright infringements that occur through the site. Then, the prosecution and defense argued about the jurisdiction concerning the alleged copyright infringements. According to the prosecution at least a third of the users were Swedish at the time, but this was contested by defense lawyer Jonas Nilsson. Nillson further stated that the alleged crimes were committed in the country where the computers of the file-sharers were located. Compensation can only be paid for infringements that occurred in Sweden, he said, which is not always the case in this regard. This reasoning was backed up by defense lawyer Peter Althin who referred to a case that dealt with a violation of Sweden’s Lotteries Act. Based on this case, it is unclear whether many of the infringements actually occurred in Sweden, the lawyer said. The Court then moved on to play a video of the interrogations of defendant Fredrik Neij at the District Court. The Court heard that Fredrik was never a member of Piratbyran and he had no ideological motivations to join The Pirate Bay. Instead, Fredrik was attracted to the site by the BitTorrent technology. He joined to "..play with The Pirate Bay, just as I wanted," he said. Fredrik was then questioned about his relationship with the Israeli businessman who handled The Pirate Bay’s ad sales. When the prosecution asked if the businessman was involved in the technical aspects of The Pirate Bay, Fredrik replied: "No, he's not good at that. He uses Windows, so…" Fredrik further said that he couldn’t recall when he first met him. Fredrik recalled that he knew co-founder Gottfrid through online chats, and that he became involved in The Pirate Bay when Gottfrid asked if he had server space available. Fredrik was asked about the significance of the site's name, but shrugged and repeated that his interest is merely in the technology. “It just sounded good,” he said referring to the name. In respect of the operation of the site, Fredrik said that there was no clear leader. If something broke, someone would simply go in to fix it. The prosecution then referred to the police interview where Fredrik admitted being aware that there may be links to copyrighted material on the site. Fredrik said he knew about these because of the legal complaints the site received. He went on to deny having received any of these personally. According to the defense, Fredrik has been mindful of the law and had a desire to operate within it, consulting lawyers to ensure his activities were legal. After the video ended the prosecution started asking Fredrik additional questions. Fredrik said that he never removed any torrent files linking to copyrighted material from the site, but only viruses and other malicious files. He is not aware of any links to copyrighted material that have been removed from The Pirate Bay. The prosecution then moved on to the joint venture agreement between Fredrik and Gottfrid which lists both as owner of the site. According to Fredrik this agreement was made because the two had plans to start daughter sites such as the YouTube spinnoff The Video Bay. Next, the prosecution moved on to mention several emails that implicate the involvement of another defendant, Carl Lundstom, in the operations of The Pirate Bay. Fredrik said that he doesn’t remember what the emails in question were about. Fredrik admitted that, according to the aforementioned agreement, he is one of the original founders of The Pirate Bay. The purpose of The Pirate Bay is to share files, Fredrik said. Users can browse the site’s index or put something in the search box, he further explained. After more questions about his motivation to run The Pirate Bay, Fredrik again stressed that it has nothing to do with ideology or politics. “I just did it because it’s really fun to run a large site, ” Neij said. After the lunch break the Court played the rest of the previously recorded interrogations at the District Court of Fredrik. The Prosecutor handed over a printed page from The Pirate Bay and said: "This is a printout from a part of your web page.” “You call this a screenshot?" Fredrik answered: "This isn't a screenshot, just a printed page." Fredrik then explained what's on the print (a Pink Panther torrent), and how the upload process on TPB works. Next up was the recorded interrogations of Peter Sunde that were filmed at the District Court last year. Prosecutor Håkan Roswall brought up Piratbyran – the Swedish Bureau of Piracy – and asked Peter if this organization is critical of copyright. "Not critical directly," Peter replied. "There are many differing views." Roswall then turned to Peter's stance toward copyright. "This is a difficult question to answer," Peter said. "I like things that are not protected by copyright, this is a non-issue." Peter was asked if he knew of The Pirate Bay's "legal" page. He said he was aware of it. Roswall, presumably trying to speak the same 'language' as the somewhat techie defendants, got tied up a little; "When did you meet [Gottfrid] for the first time IRL?" asked the Prosecutor. "We do not use the expression IRL," said Peter, "We use AFK." "IRL?" questioned the judge. "In Real Life," the Prosecutor explained to the judge. "We do not use that expression," Peter noted. "Everything is in real life. We use AFK – Away From Keyboard." "Well," said Roswall. "It seems I am a little bit out of date." Trying to pin down Peter's role in The Pirate Bay, the prosecutor asked about his position as spokesman – Peter said he took the unofficial position since no-one else in the team wanted to do it. A request from a journalist or someone else for a comment on something came in, said Peter, and he simply took it in hand. Then the attention turned to Peter's relationship with the Israeli advertiser and whether or not Peter has handled money from him. "Have you never wondered why you got these earnings reports? Isn't this type of thing a little beyond your role of spokesman?" asked Roswall. "I think it is his [the advertiser] way of trying to motivate people. He sends so much weird email, I don't read half of it. He could have been using me to get more contact with Fredrik and Gottfrid," said Peter. The Prosecutor continued to struggle with the apparent lack of a formal decision-making structure at TPB, continually referring to TPB as a "company". It was revealed that Peter and Gottfrid met the Israeli advertiser in 2005/2006. Carl Lundström and Peter Sunde met just a handful of times. "Is it true you went to Israel to meet [the Israeli advertiser] in 2006?" said Roswall. "Yes," responded Peter. "Why did you go to meet him?" questioned Roswall. "Because he asked me to go there as his guest," said Peter. "Did you not go there to go to the beach?" "Yes, I did, very often." At one stage Peter said he came up with the idea of selling statistics from TPB, believing people would be interested to read them in newspapers etc. When Roswall asked Peter if he ever expected to receive money from TPB, the answer was "no". Then it was IFPI's Peter Danowsky turn to start questioning Peter, beginning with his education. Peter said he dropped out of school but later learned English and computer programming from the Internet. Danowsky then turned his attention to ad-company Random Media, again referring to emails from TPB. Later during his questioning Danowsky's asked "Did you hold a lecture called "How to dismantle a billion dollar industry?" "Yes I did," replied Peter. Danowsky started to quote some of Peter's comments from his blog at Brokep.com. Peter said that everything he writes on his blog isn't about TPB even if prosecutors would like it to be the case. Pressed further on his opinions on copyright, Peter asked Danowsky, "That is a political issue. Is this a political trial or a legal trial?" Danowsky continued, ignoring the question but Peter pulled him back. "I want an answer from the lawyer Danowsky. Is this a political trial? Can I get a reply?" "How can copyright law be a political issue?" said Danowsky, but had no follow up questions. Peter was surprised, "No follow-ups? Ok, let me elaborate…" and he went on at length about the context of Danowsky's various questions. Danowsky asked Peter about a time when he said that rights holders had acted illegally. Peter said this was a reference to Warner Brothers that had attacked file-sharing sites with hacking, aka anti-p2p activity. Danowsky asked Peter what the purpose of TPB was. "It is to enable users to share their material with others," said Peter. "Even though it is copyrighted?" questioned Danowsky. "That can sometimes be the sad consequences," Peter replied. After a brief appearance by movie company lawyer Wadsted, the video recording and today’s hearing ended. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
As on previous days, most of this morning was spent watching material previously recorded during the earlier trial at the District Court. The day started off with the playing of a recording of Carl Lundstrom, one of the four defendants.
Last week, Julian Harvey and Enzo Tedeschi (who together form Australia-based Distracted Media) had a huge battle on their hands.
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